Although the US is already aware that the Soviet Union intends to withdraw from Afghanistan (see November 1986-November 1987) and a formal agreement on the Soviet withdrawal will be signed in four months (see April 1988), the US Congress approves aid of $480 million for Pakistan, despite its nuclear weapons program. Legislation has been passed that automatically cuts off aid to countries with illicit nuclear weapons programs (see August 1985 and August 1985), but this legislation is not invoked. Despite apparently knowing of the Pakistani program, Congress decides that supporting the war in Afghanistan is more important (see July 1987 or Shortly After and Late 1980s). Some lawmakers and officials will later say that at this time “everybody in Congress” knows that Pakistan has a nuclear weapons program (see Late 1980s), and anti-proliferation Senator John Glenn (D-OH) will later say the threat of nuclear proliferation “is a far greater danger to the world than being afraid to cut off the flow of aid to Afghanistan,” adding, “It’s the short-term versus the long-term.” (Hersh 3/29/1993)

The first Predator flight over Afghanistan on September 7, 2000 captures bin Laden circled by security in his Tarnak Farms complex. [Source: CBC]An unmanned spy plane called the Predator begins flying over Afghanistan, showing incomparably detailed real-time video and photographs of the movements of what appears to be bin Laden and his aides. It flies successfully over Afghanistan 16 times. (9/11 Commission 3/24/2004) President Clinton is impressed by a two-minute video of bin Laden crossing a street heading toward a mosque inside his Tarnak Farms complex. Bin Laden is surrounded by a team of a dozen armed men creating a professional forward security perimeter as he moves. The Predator has been used since 1996, in the Balkans and Iraq. One Predator crashes on takeoff and another is chased by a fighter, but it apparently identifies bin Laden on three occasions. Its use is stopped in Afghanistan after a few trials, mostly because seasonal winds are picking up. It is agreed to resume the flights in the spring, but the Predator fails to fly over Afghanistan again until after 9/11. (Gellman 12/19/2001; Clarke 2004, pp. 220-21) On September 15, 2001, CIA Director Tenet apparently inaccurately tells President Bush, “The unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft that was now armed with Hellfire missiles had been operating for more than a year out of Uzbekistan to provide real-time video of Afghanistan.” (Balz, Woodward, and Himmelman 1/29/2002)

A Predator drone firing a Hellfire missile. [Source: US Air Force]An armed version of the Predator drone successfully passes a test showing it is ready for use in Afghanistan. The Predator had been used successfully in 2000 to spot bin Laden (see September 7-October 2000), but it was not used in early 2001 while an armed version was prepared (see January 10-25, 2001). A Hellfire missile was successfully test fired from a Predator on February 16, 2001. (CBS News 6/25/2003) In early June 2001, a duplicate of the brick house where bin Laden is believed to be living in Kandahar, Afghanistan, is built in Nevada, and destroyed by a Predator missile. The test shows that the missile fired from miles away would have killed anyone in the building, and one participant calls this the long sought after “holy grail” that could kill bin Laden within minutes of finding him. (Gellman 1/20/2002) But National Security Adviser Rice reportedly wants to use the Predator only after an overall strategy for confronting al-Qaeda is worked out, and no such plan is close to being ready. (Bridis and Solomon 6/22/2003) She and her deputy Steve Hadley decide to delay reconnaissance flights until all the arrangements for using the armed version can be worked out. In July 2001, Hadley directs the military to have armed Predators ready to deploy no later than September 1. (9/11 Commission 3/24/2004) The main hold up seems to be bureaucratic. Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke repeatedly advocates using the Predator, armed or unarmed. However, infighting between the CIA and the Air Force over who would pay for it and take responsibility delays its use. Clarke later says, “Every time we were ready to use it, the CIA would change its mind.” (Mayer 7/28/2003) The issue comes to a head in early September 2001, but even then, a decision to use the Predator is delayed (see September 4, 2001). (Mayer 7/28/2003) The armed Predator will finally be used in Afghanistan just days after 9/11. (Bridis and Solomon 6/25/2003)

The Taliban hold a three-day drill camp for Islamist militants in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to Radio Free Europe. Attendees are said to come from several countries. The camp is held “under the patronage of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef,” who is the Taliban’s official ambassador to Pakistan at the time. (Choksy and Choksy 5/6/2011) While militant camps actually in Abbottabad are apparently uncommon, there are many such camps in the Manshera area about 35 miles away that have been there since the 1990s and will still be there in 2011 (see May 22, 2011). It is unclear when US intelligence first becomes aware of militant activity in the Abbottabad area. In 2011, a US strike force will enter Osama bin Laden’s compound near Abottabad and kill him (see May 2, 2011).

Attendees to an important cabinet-level meeting on terrorism have a heated debate over what to do with the armed Predator drone, which has been ready for use over Afghanistan since June 2001 (see Early June-September 10, 2001). Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke has been repeatedly pushing for the use of the Predator over Afghanistan (in either armed or unarmed versions), and he again argues for its immediate use. Everyone agrees that the armed Predator capability is needed, but there are disputes over who will manage and/or pay for it. CIA Director Tenet says his agency will operate the armed Predator “over my dead body.” (Washington Post 10/2/2002) Clarke recalls, “The Air Force said it wasn’t their job to fly planes to collect intelligence. No one around the table seemed to have a can-do attitude. Everyone seemed to have an excuse.” (Mayer 7/28/2003) National Security Adviser Rice concludes that the armed Predator is not ready (even though it had been proven in tests during the summer), but she also presses Tenet to reconsider his opposition to immediately resume reconnaissance flights, suspended since September the year before. After the meeting, Tenet agrees to proceed with such flights. (9/11 Commission 3/24/2004; 9/11 Commission 3/24/2004) The armed Predator is activated just days after 9/11, showing that it was ready to be used after all. (Bridis and Solomon 6/25/2003)

According to journalist Kathy Gannon, President Bush calls Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at some point during the evening of 9/11. Bush tells Musharraf he has to choose between supporting or opposing the US. “Musharraf promised immediate and unconditional support for the United States and said he could stop Pakistan’s support for the Taliban. Overnight, Musharraf went from pariah to valued friend.” (Gannon 2005, pp. 146) Similar conversations will take place between US officials and the ISI Director who happens to be in Washington (see September 13-15, 2001). But despite these promises, the Pakistani ISI will continue to secretly help the Taliban (see for instance Mid-September-October 7, 2001, September 17-18 and 28, 2001 and Early October 2001).

Before 9/11, US intelligence had collected a list of potential bombing targets in Afghanistan (see Late August 1998-2001). The list is said to include 20 to 25 major drug labs and other drug-related facilities. But according to a CIA source, when the list is turned over to the US military after 9/11, the Pentagon and White House refuse to order the bombing of any of the drug-related targets. This CIA source complains, “On the day after 9/11, that target list was ready to go, and the military and the [National Security Council] threw it out the window. We had tracked these [targets] for years. The drug targets were big places, almost like small towns that did nothing but produce heroin. The British were screaming for us to bomb those targets, because most of the heroin in Britain comes from Afghanistan. But they refused.” This source believes that if the US had bombed those targets, “it would have slowed down drug production in Afghanistan for a year or more.” (Risen 2006, pp. 154) The US will continue to avoid taking action against drug operations in Afghanistan (see February 2002).

Andrew Warren, a former CIA officer (see (1997)) who will later face date rape allegations (see September 2007 and February 17, 2008), returns to the agency. He had worked for the CIA in the late 1990s, but left before 9/11 to work in finance in New York (see Before September 11, 2001). After witnessing the 9/11 attacks, Warren returns to the agency. A fluent Arabic speaker, he is deployed to Afghanistan at some time after his return. (MacAskill 1/29/2009) The deployment to Afghanistan appears to be at some point before he serves at the CIA’s New York office, which is around September 2003 (see (September 2003)). An interview with a local paper in September 2002 will say that Warren has just returned from a two-and-a-half-month posting at the US embassy in Afghanistan. (Feber 9/20/2002)

Prominent conservative and former Reagan administration official William Bennett tells CNN that, in light of the 9/11 attacks, the US is locked in “a struggle between good and evil.” Congress must immediately declare war on what he calls “militant Islam,” with “overwhelming force.” Bennett says the US must target Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and China as targets for attack. In 2003, fellow conservative Pat Buchanan will write: “Not, however, Afghanistan, the sanctuary of Osama [bin Laden]‘s terrorists. How did Bennett know which nations must be smashed before he had any idea who attacked us?” (Buchanan 3/24/2003)

Eliza Manningham-Buller. [Source: AFP / Getty Images]Despite the restrictions on air travel following the previous day’s attacks, one private plane is allowed to fly from Britain to the United States. On it are Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British secret intelligence service (MI6), and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the deputy chief of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5. In his 2007 book At the Center of the Storm, CIA Director George Tenet will admit, “I still don’t know how they got flight clearance into the country.” Manningham-Buller and Dearlove dine for an hour-and-a-half with a group of American intelligence officials at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (Tenet 2007, pp. 173-174; BBC 12/4/2007) In addition to Tenet, the US officials at the dinner include James Pavitt and his deputy from the CIA’s Directorate for Operations; A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard, the CIA’s executive director; Cofer Black, the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center; Tyler Drumheller, the chief of the CIA’s European Division; the chief of the CIA’s Near East Division; and Thomas Pickard, the acting director of the FBI. Also part of the British delegation is David Manning, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser, who was already in the US before 9/11. (Powers 7/2/2007) The British offer condolences and their full support. The Americans say they are already certain that al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, having recognized names on passenger lists of the hijacked flights. They also say they believe the attacks are not yet over. (Tenet 2007, pp. 174; BBC 12/4/2007) According to Drumheller, Manning says, “I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan and not be tempted to launch any attacks on Iraq.” Tenet replies: “Absolutely, we all agree on that. Some might want to link the issues, but none of us wants to go that route.” (Hosenball 10/30/2006; Powers 7/2/2007; Norton-Taylor 8/4/2007)

The US is not interested in help from a high-level Taliban informant. Mullah Mohammed Khaksar was the Taliban’s intelligence minister and is currently their deputy interior minister. He is in charge of security in the Afghan capital of Kabul and regularly meets with other high ranking Taliban leaders. But since 1997, he has also been secretly providing a steady stream of intelligence to the Northern Alliance, the enemies of the Taliban. Further, he had offered to help the US defeat the Taliban, and several times before 9/11 CIA agents disguised as journalists visited him to solicit inside information (see April 1999). (Baker 11/30/2001) However, in the weeks after 9/11, he passes letters to get in contact with US intelligence, but never hears back from them. Time magazine will later report, “Khaksar said he was ready to pass on information that might lead to the capture of the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and to some al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. But he waited days, weeks, months, and nobody contacted him.” (Time 2/25/2002) Finally in late November 2001, he will publicly defect to the Northern Alliance, thus ending his ability to get real-time information on the movements of Omar and others. (Raghavan 11/29/2001) The US will continue to remain uninterested in what Khaksar has to say (see February 25, 2002).

CIA Director George Tenet and Cofer Black, the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, meet at 9:30 a.m. in the White House Situation Room with President Bush and the National Security Council. Tenet presents a plan for tracking down Osama bin Laden, toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, and confronting terrorism worldwide. According to journalist Bob Woodward, the plan involves “bringing together expanded intelligence-gathering resources, sophisticated technology, agency paramilitary teams and opposition forces in Afghanistan in a classic covert action. They would then be combined with US military power and Special Forces into an elaborate and lethal package designed to destroy the shadowy terrorist networks.” A key concept is to utilize the Northern Alliance, which is the main opposition force in Afghanistan. Despite being “a strained coalition of sometimes common interests,” Tenet says that along with the CIA teams “and tons of money, the Alliance could be brought together into a cohesive fighting force.” Black gives a presentation describing the effectiveness of covert action. He says they will need to go after the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda, as the two are joined at the hip. He wants the mission to begin as soon as possible, and adds, “When we’re through with them, they will have flies walking across their eyeballs.” Black claims that once they are on the ground, victory could be achieved in weeks. According to Bob Woodward, “No one else in the room, including Tenet, believed that was possible.” Black also warns the president, “Americans are going to die.… How many, I don’t know. Could be a lot.” Bush responds, “That’s war. That’s what we’re here to win.” This is the second presentation laying out an increasingly detailed set of CIA proposals for expanding its fight against terrorism. (George Tenet had given the first when he met with the president the day before (see September 12, 2001).) Tenet will give a more detailed presentation of the CIA’s covert action plan two days later, at Camp David (see September 15, 2001). (Woodward 2002, pp. 50-53; Balz, Woodward, and Himmelman 1/29/2002; Kessler 2003, pp. 233-234)

ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, extending his Washington visit because of the 9/11 attacks, meets with US officials and negotiates Pakistan’s cooperation with the US against al-Qaeda. On September 12, 2001, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage meets with Mahmood and allegedly demands that Pakistan completely support the US or “or be prepared to live in the Stone Age” (see September 12, 2001). (Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg) 9/12/2001; Japan Economic Newswire 9/17/2001; Rind 11/9/2001) On September 13, Armitage and Secretary of State Powell present Mahmood seven demands as a non-negotiable ultimatum. The demands are that Pakistan: Gives the US blanket overflight and landing rights for all US aircraft. Gives the US access to airports, naval bases, and borders for operations against al-Qaeda. Provides immediate intelligence sharing and cooperation. Cuts all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and stops Pakistani fighters from joining them. Publicly condemns the 9/11 attacks. Ends support for the Taliban and breaks diplomatic relations with them. Stops al-Qaeda operations on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, intercepts arms shipments through Pakistan, and ends all logistical support for al-Qaeda. Pakistan supposedly agrees to all seven. (Balz, Woodward, and Himmelman 1/29/2002; Rashid 2008, pp. 28) Mahmood also has meetings with Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Powell, regarding Pakistan’s position. (Perlez 9/13/2001; Redden 9/13/2001; Associated Press 9/13/2001; Davies 9/16/2001) On September 13, the airport in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is shut down for the day. A government official will later say the airport was closed because of threats made against Pakistan’s “strategic assets,” but will not elaborate. The next day, Pakistan declares “unstinting” support for the US, and the airport is reopened. It will later be suggested that Israel and India threatened to attack Pakistan and take control of its nuclear weapons if Pakistan did not side with the US. (Rind 11/9/2001) It will later be reported that Mahmood’s presence in Washington was a lucky blessing; one Western diplomat saying it “must have helped in a crisis situation when the US was clearly very, very angry.” (Bokhari 9/18/2001) By September 15, Mahmood is back in Pakistan, and he takes part in a meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders, discussing the US ultimatum. That evening, Musharraf announces that it completely agrees to the terms (see September 15, 2001). However, Pakistan soon begins backtracking on much of the agreement. For instance, just four days after agreeing to the ultimatum, Musharraf fails to condemn the 9/11 attacks or the Taliban or al-Qaeda in an important televised speech, even though he explicitly agreed to do so as part of the agreement (see September 19, 2001). The Pakistani ISI also continues to supply the Taliban with fuel, weapons, and even military advisers, until at least November 2001 (see Late September-November 2001). Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar will later describe Pakistan’s policy: “We agreed that we would unequivocally accept all US demands, but then we would express out private reservations to the US and we would not necessarily agree with all the details.” (Rashid 2008, pp. 28)

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Russian government realizes the US will attempt to push into the Central Asian “Stans”—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—as part of the US effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the region. But these countries had been part of the Soviet Union ten years before, and Russia does not want the US increasing its influence there. On September 13, 2001, Russian intelligence officials hold a meeting with Northern Alliance figures and the other governments that support the Northern Alliance—Iran, India, and Uzbekistan. They promise to increase support to the Northern Alliance in an attempt to outbid the US and keep the US military out of the region. Soon after, Tajikistan announces that it will not allow its airspace to be used by US aircraft. But Uzbekistan is the key country, since it has the most military bases inherited from the Soviet era, the largest population, and also a key strategic location. It also has been working with the CIA against al-Qaeda and the Taliban for several years (see 1998 and After). Uzbekistan indicates it is going to allow the US to base some of its military operations there. Realizing that the other countries are likely to follow Uzbekistan’s lead, Russia switches positions and attempts to make a collective offer to the US. On September 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting in Moscow with the leaders from all the “Stans” in an attempt to reach a joint agreement about allowing the US to use former Soviet military bases. A formal deal is reached between the US and Russia on September 22 after Putin speaks to President Bush on the telephone. The US agrees that its bases in the region will only be temporary. Bush will stop criticizing Russia for its war in Chechnya. The US will consult with Russia before taking further steps in Central Asia. The US will help accelerate Russian integration into Western economic institutions. Russian commanders who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s give extensive briefings to US Army generals. By this time, CIA teams are already moving into the K2 air base in southern Uzbekistan. Tajikistan also reverses course and allows the US to use bases there as well. Deals between the US, Russia, and Central Asian countries are initially kept secret from the public. But within days of the agreement between Putin and Bush, newspapers begin to report that US forces are moving into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Other countries make similar deals later (see September 22, 2001-December 2001). (Rashid 2008, pp. 69-71)

Some attendees of the Camp David meeting on September 15, 2001. From left to right: I. Lewis Libby, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz. [Source: PBS]President Bush meets with his advisers at Camp David for a day of intensive discussions about how to respond to the 9/11 attacks. CIA Director George Tenet has arrived there “with a briefcase stuffed with top-secret documents and plans, in many respects the culmination of more than four years of work on bin Laden, the al-Qaeda network and worldwide terrorism.” With him is his deputy, John McLaughlin, and counterterrorism chief Cofer Black. Also in the conference room with them, among others, are Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell. For his 30-minute presentation, Tenet gives out a briefing packet titled “Going to War.” His presentation covers several key components for the fight against terrorism: Tenet advocates substantially stepping up “direct support of the Northern Alliance,” the main Afghan opposition group, as part of a strategy to create “a northern front, closing the safe haven” of Afghanistan. His idea is that “Afghan opposition forces, aided by the United States, would move first against the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, try to break the Taliban’s grip on that city and open up the border with Uzbekistan. From there the campaign could move to other cities in the north.” Tenet also explains that the CIA had begun working with a number of tribal leaders in the south of Afghanistan the previous year, and these could be enticed to joint a US-led campaign. The plan includes “a full-scale covert attack on the financial underpinnings of the terrorist network, including clandestine computer surveillance and electronic eavesdropping to locate the assets of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.” The CIA and FBI would work together to track down bin Laden supporters in the US. A key proposal is a recommendation that the president give the CIA “exceptional authorities” to destroy al-Qaeda. Tenet wants a broad intelligence order allowing the agency to conduct covert operations without requiring formal approval for each specific operation, thus authorizing it to operate without restraint. Tenet and his senior deputies would be permitted to approve “snatch” operations abroad. Journalist Bob Woodward calls this “truly exceptional power.” Tenet has with him a draft of a presidential intelligence order—a “finding”—that would give the CIA power “to use the full range of covert instruments, including deadly force.” Another proposal is that, with additional hundreds of millions of dollars for new covert action, the CIA could “buy” intelligence services of key Arab nations including Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria. These could act as surrogates for the US. As Bob Woodward points out, this “would put the United States in league with questionable intelligence services, some of them with dreadful human rights records. Some had reputations for ruthlessness and using torture to obtain confessions.” Tenet calls for the initiation of intelligence contact with certain rogue states, such as Libya and Syria, so as to obtain helpful information about the terrorists. (Subsequently, by early 2002, Syria will have emerged as one of the CIA’s most effective allies in the fight against al-Qaeda (see Early 2002-January 2003).) He has with him a top-secret document called the “Worldwide Attack Matrix.” This details covert operations in 80 countries that he is recommending or are already underway. “Actions ranged from routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks.” As Woodward describes, this proposal represents “a striking departure for US policy. It would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history.” The president reportedly is much pleased with Tenet’s proposals, “virtually shouting ‘Great job!’” (Woodward 2002, pp. 74-78; Woodward and Balz 1/31/2002; Kessler 2003, pp. 234) He will grant all Tenet’s requests by the following Monday (see September 17, 2001). Tenet had presented a cruder version of the CIA plan at the White House two days earlier (see September 13, 2001).

Sharifuddin Pirzada. [Source: Aamir Qureshi / AFP / Getty Images]On September 15, ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed returns to Pakistan from the US, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf holds a meeting with Mahmood and about a dozen other senior officers to discuss how Pakistan should respond to the 9/11 attacks. Musharraf will later recall that the group “made a dispassionate, military-style analysis of our options,” aware that on his decision hung “the fate of millions of people and the future of Pakistan.” For six hours, Mahmood, Lt. Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, Lt. Gen. Jamshaid Gulzar Kiani, and Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan argue that Pakistan should not help the US at all in its imminent war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Mahmood states, “Let the US do its dirty work. Its enemies are our friends.” The Guardian will later call this “a stunning display of disloyalty.” However, Sharifuddin Pirzada, Musharraf’s legal counselor, and a high-ranking Pakistani army officer will claim in a 2007 book that Musharraf in fact did not disagree. He tells his advisers, “Pakistan has been deluged by terrorism for decades. We have learned to live with it. The Americans, too, should get used to the taste of blood.” But Musharraf also sees a strategic opportunity to manipulate the situation for Pakistan’s benefit. Pirzada will later recall, “Musharraf saw that for Pakistan it was 1979 all over again.” This is reference to the start of the Soviet-Afghan war, that led to billions of dollars in aid for Pakistan. “‘We should offer up help,’ Musharraf said, ‘and, mark my words, we will receive a clean bill of health.’” (McCarthy 5/25/2002; Levy and Scott-Clark 2007, pp. 313-314) Musharraf eventually silences the dissenting generals by suggesting that if Pakistan does not agree to the US demands, Pakistan’s long-time enemy India will gladly take the place of Pakistan in assisting the US. That evening, Musharraf speaks to Wendy Chamberlin, the US ambassador to Pakistan, and tells her that Pakistan has agreed to all of the US demands. However, he strongly hints that Pakistan needs immediate economic relief and an end to US economic sanctions in return. (Rashid 2008, pp. 30-31) Musharraf has already offered the US unconditional help in its fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban (see September 13-15, 2001 and (Between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). But just four days after this meeting, Musharraf gives a speech on Pakistani television implying that Pakistan’s alliance with the US is only a temporary and opportunistic necessity. He says, “I have done everything for Afghanistan and the Taliban when the whole world was against them. We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to them” (see September 19, 2001).

During a morning meeting with advisers at Camp David, President Bush indicated that he wanted to focus on attacking Afghanistan first, and then look at the issue of attacking Iraq later (see September 15, 2001). During the lunch break, he sends a message to the neoconservatives in attendance that he does not want to hear any more about Iraq that day. But one of the neoconservatives there is Richard Perle, who holds no government position but heads the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon. According to Vanity Fair, Perle will later claim that the morning discussion about Iraq “had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq’s turn.” (Burrough et al. 5/2004)

Pakistani ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is periodically meeting and communicating with top Taliban leader Mullah Omar during this time. He is advising him to resist the US and not to hand over bin Laden (see September 17-18 and 28, 2001). According to journalist Kathy Gannon, he is also giving Omar and other Taliban leaders advice on how to resist the US military. Omar has almost no education and very little understanding of the Western world. Mahmood, by contrast, has just come from meetings with top officials in the US (see September 13-15, 2001). Gannon will later write that each time Mahmood visited Omar, he gave him “information about the likely next move by the United States. By then, [he] knew there weren’t going to be a lot of US soldiers on the ground. He warned Mullah Omar that the United States would be relying heavily on aerial bombardment and on the Northern Alliance.” Mahmood gives additional pointers on targets likely to be hit, command and control systems, anti-aircraft defense, what types of weapons the US will use, and so forth. (Gannon 2005, pp. 93-94) Immediately after 9/11, Mahmood had promised Pakistan’s complete support to help the US defeat the Taliban (see September 13-15, 2001).

According to author James Risen, at some point after 9/11 but before the start of bombing in Afghanistan, “US intelligence located Osama bin Laden, but the US military was not prepared to strike him. [US] intelligence officials say that at the time, the US military was developing a plan for an air campaign over Afghanistan that was not flexible enough to take advantage of the sudden windfall of intelligence concerning bin Laden. This little-known opportunity to kill bin Laden came before the terrorist leader fled into the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan, where he became much more difficult to track.” (Risen 2006, pp. 185)

Robert Grenier, head of the CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistan, has a secret meeting with Mullah Akhter Mohammed Osmani, considered to be the second-most powerful figure in the Taliban. They meet in a five-star hotel in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Grenier suggests that if the Taliban want to avoid the wrath of the US in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there are several things they can do: Turn bin Laden over to the US for prosecution. As CIA Director George Tenet will later put it, “administer justice themselves, in a way that clearly [takes] him off the table.” Stand aside and let the US find bin Laden on their own. Osmani and his team relays the offers back to top Taliban leader Mullah Omar, but Omar rejects them. On October 2, Grenier has a second meeting with Osmani in a Baluchistan villa. He makes the new proposal that Osmani should overthrow Omar and then use his new power to get rid of bin Laden. This too is rejected. There are no contemporary media accounts of these meetings, but Tenet will describe them in his 2007 book. (Tenet 2007, pp. 182-183) Curiously, Osmani will be captured by US forces in 2002 and then let go (see Late July 2002). He will be killed in late 2006 (see December 19, 2006).

Robert Fisk, a veteran journalist who in 1993 was the first Westerner to interview bin Laden (see December 6, 1993), writes an editorial in the Independent entitled “Bush is Walking Into a Trap.” Contrary to the prevailing mood at the time, he writes: “President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity.… But this crime was perpetrated - it becomes ever clearer - to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing.” He argues that unjust US foreign policy in the Middle East is the main reason for widespread Muslim animosity to the US, and that new wars will only exacerbate the problem. He concludes: “I repeat: what happened in New York was a crime against humanity. And that means policemen, arrests, justice, a whole new international court at The Hague if necessary. Not cruise missiles and ‘precision’ bombs and Muslim lives lost in revenge for Western lives. But the trap has been sprung. Mr Bush [is] now walking into it.” (Fisk 9/16/2001)

President Bush signs a directive giving the CIA the authority to kill or capture suspected al-Qaeda members and to set up a global network of secret detention facilities—“black sites”—for imprisoning and interrogating them. (Weissman 8/27/2004) Secret Prison System - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will later call the sites a “hidden global internment network” designed for secret detentions, interrogations, and ultimately, torture. At least 100 prisoners will be remanded to this secret system of “extraordinary rendition.” The network will have its own fleet of aircraft (see October 4, 2001) and relatively standardized transfer procedures. (Danner 3/15/2009) The directive, known as a memorandum of notification, will become the foundation for the CIA’s secret prison system. The directive does not spell out specific guidelines for interrogations. (Johnston 9/10/2006) Secret Assassination List - Bush also approves a secret “high-value target list” containing about two dozen names, giving the CIA executive and legal authority to either kill or capture those on the list (see Shortly After September 17, 2001). The president is not required to approve each name added to the list and the CIA does not need presidential approval for specific attacks. Further, a presidential finding gives the CIA broad authority to capture or kill terrorists not on the list; the list is merely the CIA’s primary focus. The CIA will use these authorities to hunt for al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and elsewhere. (Risen and Johnston 12/15/2002)

President Bush signs a 2 1/2-page “top secret” document that outlines the administration’s plan to invade Afghanistan and topple its government. According to administration officials interviewed by the Washington Post, the document also instructs the Pentagon to begin planning for an invasion of Iraq. (Kessler 1/12/2003; Pilger 9/22/2003; Fallows 10/2004Sources: senior administration officials) The document further orders the military to be ready to occupy Iraq’s oil fields if the country acts against US interests. (Smith 7/23/2004)

Franklin Miller. [Source: PBS]President Bush is briefed at the Pentagon on upcoming special operations in Afghanistan. National Security Council staffer Franklin Miller reviews a classified slide presentation that an unnamed two-star general is going to give Bush in a few minutes. One slide in the presentation is labeled, “Thinking Outside the Box—Poisoning Food Supply.” Miller shows this to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and points out that the US is legally prohibited from committing chemical or biological attacks. Rice talks to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the two of them agree to take the slide out of the presentation before Bush sees it. (Woodward 2002, pp. 86-87)

The CIA begins a program to kill or capture al-Qaeda leaders using small teams of its paramilitary forces. (Mazzetti and Shane 7/14/2009; Warrick and Smith 8/20/2009) The aim is to take out of circulation members of al-Qaeda and its affiliates who are judged to be plotting attacks against US forces or interests. The program’s establishment follows its proposal by an official at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (see Shortly After September 11, 2001) and official approval from the White House (see September 17, 2001). The program, initially run by the Counterterrorist Center, never becomes operational at the agency and no targets are ever proposed for the White House’s approval; although the CIA will both capture and kill several al-Qaeda leaders over the next few years (see, for example, February 29 or March 1, 2003 and December 1, 2005), these successes result from ad hoc operations or other programs. However, the Pentagon will later begin a parallel program that does kill and capture al-Qaeda leaders (see July 22, 2002). Although the CIA’s program is never used, it is, according to CIA spokesman George Little, “much more than a PowerPoint presentation.” (Mazzetti and Shane 7/14/2009; Warrick and Smith 8/20/2009) Another official adds: “It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin. It went well beyond that.” (Mazzetti 8/20/2009) Top CIA officials are briefed periodically about the program’s progress. (Mazzetti and Shane 7/14/2009) The program is intended for use in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other countries. (Mazzetti and Shane 7/14/2009; Warrick and Smith 8/20/2009) Reasons for its non-use include logistical, legal, and diplomatic hurdles. (Mazzetti 8/20/2009) There are three versions of the program: an initial one done in house, another one operated by the private military contractor Blackwater (see 2004), and another, possibly after Blackwater leaves the program (see (2005-2006)). The total spending on the program is under $20 million over eight years. (Warrick and Smith 8/20/2009) There is a US government ban on assassinating people. However, the Bush administration takes the position that killing members of al-Qaeda, a terrorist group that attacked the US and has pledged to attack it again, is no different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, so the CIA is not constrained by the ban. (Mazzetti and Shane 7/14/2009; Mazzetti 8/20/2009)

In the days just after the 9/11 attacks, top US officials give approval to use the Predator drone in Afghanistan. The first Predator drones and missiles reached the Afghanistan theater on September 16. Two days later, the Predator is first used, flying over Kabul and Kandahar, but without carrying weapons. On October 7, the unnamed nearby country hosting the drones grants approval for armed Predators to be used. The first armed mission is flown later the same day. The CIA is in charge of most Predator flights in the region. (9/11 Commission 3/24/2004 ) The speed in which the Predator is deployed in Afghanistan is noticeable, considering that just one week before 9/11, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice concluded that the armed Predator was not ready to be used there (see September 4, 2001).

On September 19, 2001, Cofer Black, head of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, speaks to Gary Berntsen, a CIA officer who is about to lead the first unit of CIA operatives into Afghanistan. Black tells Berntsen that President Bush has signed a new intelligence order. As Black will put it in 2002, the gloves are off (see September 26, 2002). Black orders Berntsen: “You have one mission. Go find the al-Qaeda and kill them. We’re going to eliminate them. Get bin Laden, find him. I want his head in a box.… I want to take it down and show the president.” Berntsen replies, “Well, that couldn’t be any clearer.” (Woodward 11/18/2002) Indeed, two days before Bush, signed new orders giving the CIA broad new powers (see September 17, 2001 and September 17, 2001).
Bernsten and his team arrive in Afghanistan on September 26 (see September 26, 2001).

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf gives a speech on Pakistani television in Urdu, the main language of Pakistan. He draws a lengthy analogy between the situation facing Pakistan in the wake of 9/11 and an opportunistic alliance the Prophet Mohammed made to defeat his enemies. This message is widely interpreted in Pakistan as implying that the alliance with the US is only a temporary necessity. He says, “I have done everything for Afghanistan and the Taliban when the whole world was against them. We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to them.” These comments are virtually ignored outside Pakistan at the time. (Harrison 6/24/2003; Harrison 9/5/2006) At no point in the speech does he condemn the Taliban or al-Qaeda, or link them to the 9/11 attacks, despite having promised US officials in recent days that he would do just that. He also says that by bending on Afghanistan, he has saved Islamist militancy in Kashmir, the region disputed between Pakistan and India. (Rashid 2008, pp. 32)

Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz. [Source: New York Times]According to the private intelligence service Intelligence Online, a secret meeting between fundamentalist supporters in Saudi Arabia and the ISI takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on this day. Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, the new head of Saudi intelligence, meet with Gen. Mohamed Youssef, head of the ISI’s Afghanistan Section, and ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed (just returning from discussions in Afghanistan). They agree “to the principle of trying to neutralize Osama bin Laden in order to spare the Taliban regime and allow it to keep its hold on Afghanistan.” There has been no confirmation that this meeting in fact took place, but if it did, its goals were unsuccessful. (Intelligence Online 10/4/2001) There may have been a similar meeting before 9/11 in the summer of 2001.

A secret report to NATO allies says the US privately wants to hear allied views on “post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country.” However, the US is publicly claiming it has no intentions to overthrow the Taliban. (Traynor and Younge 9/21/2001) For instance, four days later, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer denies that military actions there are “designed to replace one regime with another.”
(US Department of State 12/26/2001)

Veteran CIA officer Gary Schroen and his team of CIA operatives known as “Jawbreaker” is helicoptered into the Panjshir Valley of northeastern Afghanistan. This area, about 70 miles north of Kabul, is controlled by the Northern Alliance. The team of about 10 operatives carries communications equipment so they can directly communicate with CIA headquarters back in the US. Schroen also carries a suitcase containing $3 million in non-sequential $100 bills. That same evening, Schroen meets with Muhammed Arif Sawari, known as Engineer Aref, head of the Northern Alliance’s intelligence service. He gives Aref $500,000 and promises much more money and support soon. The Jawbreaker team will remain the only US forces on the ground in Afghanistan until about the middle of October. (Woodward 11/18/2002) Before the Jawbreaker team deploys, J. Cofer Black, the CIA’s Washington coordinator for Jawbreaker, gave the men instructions that author Jeremy Scahill will later call “direct and macabre.” Black told the men: “I don’t want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead.… They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden’s head to the president. I promised him I would do that” (see September 19, 2001). Schroen will later say it was the first time in his career he had been ordered to assassinate an enemy rather than attempt a capture. (Scahill 8/20/2009)

Gary Schroen. [Source: CBC]Long-time CIA operative Gary Schroen is assigned on September 13, 2001 to lead a small team into Afghanistan to link up with the Northern Alliance and prepare for the US bombing campaign. His team totalling seven officers and three air crew land in Afghanistan on this day. This team will be the only US forces in the country for nearly a month, until special forces begin arriving on October 19 (see October 19, 2001). Schroen will later comment, “I was surprised at how slow the US military was to get themselves in a position where they could come and join us.” During this month, Schroen’s team gives the Northern Alliance money and assurances that the US is serious with their attack plans. They also survey battlefields with GPS units to determine where opposing forces are located. (Schroen 1/20/2006)

According to CIA Director George Tenet, on this day the CIA inserts its first covert teams into Afghanistan. Eventually this will grow to about 110 CIA operatives by the time the Taliban is routed from Afghanistan in late 2001. (Tenet 2007, pp. 187, 225)

ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed meets with top Taliban leader Mullah Omar on September 17-18, 2001, and again on September 28. He is supposed to encourage the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden or face immediate US attack, but in fact he encourages the Taliban to fight and resist the upcoming US invasion (see Mid-September-October 7, 2001). He is also in regular communication with Omar and other Taliban leaders, and gives them advice on how to resist the US invasion (see Mid-September-October 7, 2001). The CIA quickly learns of Mahmood’s double dealing, and informs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf replaces Mahmood on October 7 (see October 7, 2001). But despite the ISI’s obvious double dealing, the CIA continues to heavily rely on the ISI for its intelligence about the Taliban (see November 3, 2001). (Rashid 2008, pp. 77)

By late September 2001, the CIA covert plan to conquer Afghanistan is in place but it needs the US military to work. CIA official Gary Schroen will later recall, “We were there for just about a month by ourselves in the valley. We were the only Americans in the country for almost a month.” According to a PBS Frontline documentary, at some point around the middle of October, “there was a fiery NSC [National Security Council] meeting. The CIA had been complaining [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld was dragging his feet in Afghanistan. It was said Rumsfeld didn’t like taking orders from the CIA.” Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong will later say, “Rumsfeld went to the president and said, ‘The CIA has to work for me, or this isn’t going to work.’” President Bush finally agrees and places Rumsfeld in charge of the Afghanistan war. A short time later, on October 20, the first US Special Forces are put into action in Afghanistan, calling in precision air strikes. The Taliban fold in the face of the attack and the capital of Kabul will fall in mid-November. But according to Schroen, “I was absolutely convinced that that would happen and that the Taliban would break quickly. That could have happened in October, early October,” had the US military arrived to assist the CIA sooner. (Kirk 6/20/2006)

The ISI secretly assists the Taliban in its defense against a US-led attack. The ISI advises Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that the Taliban will hold out against the US invasion until the spring of 2002 at least, and then will be able to hold out through a guerrilla war. Encouraged, Musharraf allows the ISI to continue to supply the Taliban on a daily basis. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid will later explain, “The ISI justified its actions as stemming from fear of an Indian controlled Northern Alliance government after the overthrow of the Taliban. It also did not want to totally abandon the Taliban, its only proxy in Afghanistan. At the same time, the [Pakistani] army wanted to keep the Americans engaged, fearing that once Kabul had fallen, they would once again desert the region. With one hand Musharraf played at helping the war against terrorism, while with the other he continued to deal with the Taliban.” ISI Supplies and Advisers - Fuel tankers and supply trucks cross the border so frequently that one border crossing in the Pakistani province of Balochistan is closed to all regular traffic so ISI supplies can continue to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar with little notice. (Rashid 2008, pp. 77-78) Between three and five ISI officers give military advice to the Taliban in late September. (Rashid 10/10/2001) At least five key ISI operatives help the Taliban prepare defenses in Kandahar, yet none are punished for their activities. (McGirk 5/6/2002) Secret advisers begin to withdraw in early October, but some stay on into November. (Zielenziger and Tamayo 11/3/2001) Large convoys of rifles, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers for Taliban fighters cross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan on October 8 and 12, just after US bombing of Afghanistan begins and after a supposed crackdown on ISI fundamentalists. The Pakistani ISI secretly gives safe passage to these convoys, despite having promised the US in September that such assistance would immediately stop. (Frantz 12/8/2001) US Aware of ISI Double Dealing - Rashid will later comment, “Thus, even as some ISI officers were helping US officers locate Taliban targets for US bombers, other ISI officers were pumping in fresh armaments for the Taliban.” On the Afghan side of the border with Pakistan, Northern Alliance operatives keep track of the ISI trucks crossing the border, and keep the CIA informed about the ISI aid. Gary Berntsen, one of the first CIA operatives to arrive in Afghanistan, will later say, “I assumed from the beginning of the conflict that ISI advisers were supporting the Taliban with expertise and material and, no doubt, sending a steady stream of intelligence back to [Pakistan].” (Rashid 2008, pp. 77-78) Taliban Collapses as ISI Aid Slows - Secret ISI convoys of weapons and other supplies continue into November. (Bryant 11/1/2001; McGirk 5/6/2002) An anonymous Western diplomat will later state, “We did not fully understand the significance of Pakistan’s role in propping up the Taliban until their guys withdrew and things went to hell fast for the Talibs.” (Frantz 12/8/2001)

According to several press reports, the CIA has set up a secret detention and interrogation center (see October 2001-2004) at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan where US intelligence officers are using aggressive techniques on detainees. The captives—imprisoned in metal shipping containers—are reportedly subjected to a variety of “stress and duress” interrogation tactics. (Priest and Gellman 12/26/2002; van Natta 3/9/2003) The detention facility at Bagram is a rusting hulk originally built by the Soviet Army as an aircraft machine shop around 1979, and later described by the New York Times as “a long, squat, concrete block with rusted metal sheets where the windows had once been.” It is retrofitted with five large wire pens and a half-dozen plywood isolation cells, and is dubbed the Bagram Collection Point, or BCP, a processing center for prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The facility typically holds between 40 to 80 prisoners before they are interrogated and screened for possible transfer to Guantanamo. (Golden 5/20/2005) Detainees are often forced to stand or kneel for hours, wear black hoods or spray-painted goggles for long periods of time, and stand or sit in awkward and painful positions. They are also reportedly thrown into walls, kicked, punched, deprived of sleep, and subjected to flashing lights and loud noises. (Priest and Gellman 12/26/2002; van Natta 3/9/2003; Amnesty International 8/19/2003) Some detainees tell of being “chained to the ceiling, their feet shackled, [and being] unable to move for hours at a time, day and night” (see December 5-9, 2002). (Gall 3/4/2003; Gall and Rohde 9/17/2004) Psychological interrogation methods such as “feigned friendship, respect, [and] cultural sensitivity” are reported to be in use as well. For instance, female officers are said to sometimes conduct the interrogations, a technique described as being “a psychologically jarring experience for men reared in a conservative Muslim culture where women are never in control.” (Priest and Gellman 12/26/2002) Human rights monitors are not permitted to visit the facility. (Priest and Gellman 12/26/2002; Agence France-Presse 12/29/2002) The US claims that the interrogation techniques used at Bagram do not violate international laws. “Our interrogation techniques are adapted,” Gen. Daniel McNeil claims in early March 2003. “They are in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques, and if incidental to the due course of this investigation, we find things that need to be changed, we will certainly change them.” (Borger 3/7/2003)

On October 8, 2001, Gen. Tommy Franks, Central Command commander in chief, says of the war in Afghanistan, “We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort. What we are about is the destruction of the al-Qaeda network, as well as the… Taliban that provide harbor to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” (Omicinski 10/8/2001) Later in the month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes similar comments, “My attitude is that if [bin Laden] were gone tomorrow, the same problem would exist. He’s got a whole bunch of lieutenants who have been trained and they’ve got bank accounts all over some 50 or 60 countries. Would you want to stop him? Sure. Do we want to stop the rest of his lieutenants? You bet. But I don’t get up in the morning and say that is the end; the goal and the endpoint of this thing. I think that would be a big mistake.” (Rumsfeld 10/24/2001) One military expert will later note, “There appears to be a real disconnect between what the US military was engaged in trying to do during the battle for Tora Bora - which was to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban - and the earlier rhetoric of President Bush, which had focused on getting bin Laden.” (Smucker 3/4/2002) Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers will make a similar comment in April 2002 (see April 4, 2002). (Smucker 3/4/2002)

The main routes al-Qaeda and the Taliban escape US and Nothern Alliance forces. [Source: Yvonne Vermillion/ MagicGraphix.com]James Risen will report in his 2006 book, State of War, there was “a secret debate within the Bush administration over how vigorously to support the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel group that had been battling the Taliban for years.” The Northern Alliance was dominated by Tajik ethnic minority in the north while the Pakistani government backed the Pashtun ethnic majority in the south. (Risen 2006, pp. 169-170) As a result, as New Yorker magazine would later note, “The initial American aim in Afghanistan had been not to eliminate the Taliban’s presence there entirely but to undermine the regime and al-Qaeda while leaving intact so-called moderate Taliban [and Pashtun] elements that would play a role in a new postwar government. This would insure that Pakistan would not end up with a regime on its border dominated by the Northern Alliance.” (Hersh 1/21/2002) On October 17, the Washington Post reports that the US and Pakistan are “working together to form a representative government” and Secretary of State Colin Powell says that he hopes moderate Taliban could be persuaded to join such a government. (Constable 10/17/2001) As a result of these goals, US bombers are “ordered to focus their attacks on Afghan government infrastructure targets in Kabul and elsewhere, far from the battlefields in the north, and the Taliban front lines [are] left relatively unscathed.” This policy not only delays the defeat of the Taliban but also gives al-Qaeda leaders extra time to prepare their escape. However, in early November the US bombing finally begins targeting the Taliban frontlines, especially near the key northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif. The results are immediate and dramatic, allowing the Northern Alliance to conquer the capital of Kabul within days (see November 13, 2001). (Risen 2006, pp. 169-170)

Jalaluddin Haqqani. [Source: PBS]Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is supposedly helping the US defeat the Taliban (see September 13-15, 2001) while secretly helping the Taliban resist the US (see September 17-18 and 28, 2001 and Mid-September-October 7, 2001). Jalaluddin Haqqani is a Taliban leader close to bin Laden who controls the Khost region of eastern Afghanistan where most of bin Laden’s training camps and supporters are. Journalist Kathy Gannon will later note, “Had he wanted to, Haqqani could have handed the United States the entire al-Qaeda network.” (Gannon 2005, pp. 94) He also has extensive ties with the ISI, and was a direct CIA asset in the 1980s (see (1987)). Journalist Steve Coll will later say, “There was always a question about whether Haqqani was really Taliban, because he hadn’t come out of Kandahar; he wasn’t part of the core group. And it was quite reasonable to believe after 9/11 that maybe he could be flipped.… [US officials] summoned him to Pakistan, and they had a series of meetings with him, the content of which is unknown.” (Coll 10/3/2006) In early October 2001, Haqqani makes a secret trip to Pakistan and meets with Mahmood. Mahmood advises him to hold out and not defect, saying that he will have help. Haqqani stays with the Taliban and will continue to fight against the US long after the Taliban loses power. (Gannon 2005, pp. 94)

The Washington Post reports in late 2004 that, shortly after Richard Myers officially becomes Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on October 1, 2001, he raises doubts about the military plan to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. General Tommy Franks, the chief of US Central Command, plans a single thrust towards the capital, Kabul, from the north. Myers urges Franks to open a southern front. A brigade of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in Uzbekistan and two Marine Expeditionary Forces in the Arabian Sea are prepared and in position for the role. However, Franks does not position a blocking force to meet any retreating forces. The Washington Post reports, “Some Bush administration officials now acknowledge privately they consider that a costly mistake.” Franks later claims that it would have taken too much time to put a force into position and would have antagonized the country’s Pashtun majority. Most of al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s leaders are eventually able to escape the country. “A high-ranking war planner [later] likened the result to throwing a rock at a nest of bees, then trying to chase them down, one by one, with a net.”
(Gellman 10/22/2004)

In mid-November 2001, the Washington Post will report that senior Air Force officials are upset they have missed opportunities to hit top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders since the start of the bombing of Afghanistan. According to these officials, the Air Force believes it has the leaders in its crosshairs as many as ten times, but they are unable to receive a timely clearance to fire. Cumbersome approval procedures, a concern not to kill civilians, and a power play between the Defense Department and the CIA contribute to the delays. One anonymous Air Force official later says, “We knew we had some of the big boys. The process is so slow that by the time we got the clearances, and everybody had put in their 2 cents, we called it off.” The main problem is that commanders in the region have to ask for permission from General Tommy Franks, based in Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, or even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other higher-ups. Air Force generals complain to Franks about the delay problem, but never receive a response. For example, at one point in October, a Taliban military convoy is moving north to reinforce front line positions. Targeters consider it an easy mark of clear military value. But permission from Central Command is denied on the suspicion that the target is so obvious that “it might be a trick.” In another example, a target is positively identified by real-time imagery from a Predator drone, but Central Command overrides the decision to strike, saying they want a second source of data. An anonymous official calls this request for independent verification of Predator imagery “kind of ridiculous.” (Ricks 11/18/2001) The London Times paraphrase officials who claim that, “Attempts to limit collateral damage [serve] merely to prolong the war, and force the Pentagon to insert commandos on the ground to hunt down the same targets.” (Fletcher 11/19/2001) By the end of the war, only one top al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Atef, is killed in a bombing raid (see November 15, 2001), and no top Taliban leaders are killed.

The Afghan village of Darya Khanah is bombed on October 27, 2001. [Source: Associated Press]The US begins bombing Afghanistan. (MSNBC 11/2001) The bombing campaign will taper off around the end of 2001. Some, like counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, will later criticize the amount of time before the bombings could start. Shortly ater 9/11, Clarke was made co-chairman of an interagency committee to devise responses to al-Qaeda. He had advocated a “rapid, no-holds-barred” retaliation in Afghanistan, including sending troops to immediately seal off Afghanistan’s borders and cut off escape routes. But the Bush administration decided to focus on air power. The start of the bombing campaign was delayed until this date mostly because of concerns about US pilots being captured. A network of combat search and rescue teams were set up in neighboring countries first, to allow a rapid response in case a pilot was shot down. (Fallows 10/2004) Most documentary evidence suggests the US was not planning this bombing before 9/11. However, former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik has claimed that in July 2001 senior US officials told him that a military action to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan would, as the BBC put it, “take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” (Arney 9/18/2001)

On the first night of the Afghan war, an unmanned Predator drone identifies a convoy of vehicles fleeing Kabul. Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban, is determined to be inside this convoy. The CIA is in control of the Predator attack drone and wants to use it to kill Omar, but they have to ask for permission from military commanders who are based in Florida. General Tommy Franks decides not to fire any missiles or launch an air strike against the building in which Omar takes shelter. Eventually fighters attack and destroy the building, but by then Omar and his associates have moved on. One anonymous senior official later says of this failure to kill Omar, “It’s not a f_ckup, it’s an outrage.” According to one senior military officer, “political correctness” and/or slow bureaucratic procedures are to blame. (Hersh 10/16/2001) It is later revealed that this is part of a pattern of delays that will hinder many attacks on al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders (see Early October-Mid-November, 2001).

Ali Jan Orakzai. [Source: Associated Press]Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appoints a general sympathetic to the Taliban to seal off the Afghanistan border as US forces close in on al-Qaeda and Taliban militants on the other side. Ali Jan Orakzai is appointed on October 8, 2001, a day Musharraf responded to US pressure and fired some Islamist extremist officers, only to replace them with other Islamist extremist officers (see October 8, 2001). Orakzai, a friend and close adviser to Musharraf, will generally be known as someone who hates the US and sympathizes with the Taliban (see Late 2002-Late 2003). His instructions are to send troops to Pakistan’s tribal region next to Afghanistan to catch fleeing terrorists. On October 11, Pakistani helicopters will begin dropping soldiers in mountainous regions where no Pakistani soldiers had been to before. By December 2001, Orakzai will position more than 30,000 soldiers in the region. (Lamb 1/22/2005) However, when he ends his command of troops in the region in 2004, he will claim that his forces never even saw one Arab there (see January 22, 2005). Musharraf will finally fire him in 2007 for his ineffectiveness and militant sympathies (see July 19, 2007).

Khalid Khawaja. [Source: CNN]Ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, as part of his attempt to gather evidence that could tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, contacts the Taliban. He works with Mansoor Ijaz, a US businessman of Pakistani origin, who is a lobbyist for Pakistan in the US, an occasional Fox News commentator, and has extensive political ties in the US. Woolsey is also vice chairman of the board of Ijaz’s company. Woolsey and Ijaz work with Khalid Khawaja, a friend of Osama bin Laden and ex-ISI operative. The three plus an unnamed US journalist arrange to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on October 8. The Taliban agree to tell Woolsey about a meeting between Iraqi and al-Qaeda officials that took place in 1997, and possibly other similar information. Apparently in return they hope to avert the US invasion of Afghanistan. However, the US bombing begins on October 7, and the meeting is called off. (Sharif 2/15/2002; Huband 3/6/2003) At least part of this team will later play another behind-the-scenes role. After being given a tip that Mansoor Ijaz is connected to leading militant Muslims in Pakistan, reporter Daniel Pearl will connect with Khalid Khawaja, who in turn connects him with militant Muslims who kidnap and eventually kill him. A leading Pakistani newspaper will claim that at one point Newsweek is about to accuse Khawaja of involvement in the plot to kidnap Pearl, but Ijaz vouches for Khawaja and convinces Newsweek to pull back its accusations. (Sharif 2/15/2002; Anson 8/2002)

President Bush briefly considers sealing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to prevent the escape of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, but then decides against it. According to journalist Bob Woodward, a National Security Council (NSC) meeting held on this day is attended by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and others. Intelligence indicates that about 100 people per day are going from Pakistan to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban. Woodward will claim, “There was some talk of sealing the border.” But he adds the idea is immediately dismissed: “It seemed an impossible idea, not practical given the hundreds of miles of mountainous and rough terrain, some of the most formidable in the world. There were few roads. Getting from one point to another could only be done on foot, with mules, or on horseback.” (Woodward 2002, pp. 205) CIA official Michael Scheuer will later comment, “There is no denying that closing that border was a hard job, but if the NSC did not believe that the best military in the world could close the border and trap bin Laden, why did it decide that the task could be safely allotted to the poorly armed and trained and generally anti-US Pakistani forces?” (Scheuer 2008)

According to the Moscow Times, the Russian government sees the upcoming US conquest of Afghanistan as an attempt by the US to replace Russia as the dominant political force in Central Asia, with the control of oil as a prominent motive: “While the bombardment of Afghanistan outwardly appears to hinge on issues of fundamentalism and American retribution, below the surface, lurks the prize of the energy-rich Caspian basin into which oil majors have invested billions of dollars. Ultimately, this war will set the boundaries of US and Russian influence in Central Asia—and determine the future of oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea.”
(Rutland 10/15/2001) The US later appears to gain military influence over Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country with the most resource wealth, and closest to the Russian heartland (see March 30, 2002).

US Special Forces being paradropped into Afghanistan. The date and exact location is unknown. [Source: PBS]US Special Forces ground forces arrive in Afghanistan. (MSNBC 11/2001) However, during the Afghanistan war, special forces soldiers are mainly employed in small numbers as observers, liaisons, and spotters for air power to assist the Northern Alliance—not as direct combatants. (Smucker 3/4/2002) The first significant special forces operation on October 20 will be a near disaster, leaving military commanders increasingly reluctant to use US troops directly in battle (see October 20, 2001). (Smucker 3/4/2002) Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will suggest in 2004 that the Bush administration did not commit more ground forces to Afghanistan because it wanted to have enough troops available to stage a large offensive against Iraq. “I can’t prove this, but I believe they didn’t want to put in a lot of regular infantry because they wanted to hold it in reserve,” Richard Clarke explains. “And the issue is the infantry. A rational military planner who was told to stabilize Afghanistan after the Taliban was gone, and who was not told that we might soon be doing Iraq, would probably have put in three times the number of infantry, plus all the logistics support ‘tail.’ He would have put in more civil-affairs units, too. Based on everything I heard at the time, I believe I can make a good guess that the plan for Afghanistan was affected by a predisposition to go into Iraq. The result of that is that they didn’t have enough people to go in and stabilize the country, nor enough people to make sure these guys didn’t get out.” The first regular US combat troops will be deployed in late November and play a more limited role. (Fallows 10/2004)

US Special Forces in the foreground with their Afghan allies in the rear. The allies are wearing US-issued parkas. [Source: Robin Moore]US special forces conduct their first two significant raids in the Afghanistan war on this day. In the first, more than a hundred Army Rangers parachute into a supposedly Taliban-controlled airbase near Kandahar. But in fact, the airbase had already been cleared by other forces, and the raid apparently is staged for propaganda purposes. Footage of the raid is shown that evening on US television. In the other raid, a combination of Rangers and Delta Force attack a house outside Kandahar occasionally used by Taliban leader Mullah Omar. This raid is publicly pronounced a success, but privately the military deems it a near-disaster. Twelve US soldiers are wounded in an ambush as they leave the compound, and neither Mullah Omar nor any significant intelligence is found at the house. Prior to these raids, top military leaders were already reluctant to use special forces for fear of casualties, but after the raids, the military is said to be even more reluctant. (Hersh 11/5/2001) Author James Risen will later note that Gen. Tommy Franks was “under intense pressure from [Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld to limit the number of US troops being deployed to the country.” (Risen 2006, pp. 185) Only around three-dozen US special forces will take part in the pivotal battle for Tora Bora (see December 5-17, 2001). Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later blame the failure to capture bin Laden during the war to “the abject fear of American casualties. It’s something that cuts across both [the Clinton and Bush] administrations.” (Scheuer 6/20/2006)

Abdul Haq. [Source: Abdul Haq Foundation]Abdul Haq, a leader of the Afghan resistance to the Taliban, is killed. According to some reports, he “seemed the ideal candidate to lead an opposition alliance into Afghanistan to oust the ruling Taliban.” (Burke 10/28/2001) Four days earlier, he had secretly entered Afghanistan with a small force to try to raise rebellion, but was spotted by Taliban forces and surrounded. He calls former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane (who had supported him in the past) who then calls the CIA and asks for immediate assistance to rescue Haq. A battle lasting up to twelve hours ensues. (The CIA had previously rejected Haq’s requests for weapons to fight the Taliban, and so his force is grossly underarmed.) (Gordon and Weiner 10/29/2001) The CIA refuses to send in a helicopter to rescue him, alleging that the terrain is too rough, even though Haq’s group is next to a hilltop once used as a helicopter landing point. (Burke 10/28/2001; Marshall 10/28/2001) An unmanned surveillance aircraft eventually attacks some of the Taliban forces fighting Haq, but not until five hours after Haq has been captured. The Taliban executes him. (McFarlane 11/2/2001) Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, and others suggest that Haq’s position was betrayed to the Taliban by the ISI. Haq was already an enemy of the ISI, which may have killed his family. (Fard 10/26/2001; Slavin and Weisman 10/31/2001; Zielenziger and Tamayo 11/3/2001; Diebel 11/5/2001)

Gary Bernsten. [Source: CNN]Veteran CIA agent Gary Berntsen leads a CIA undercover team, codenamed Jawbreaker, to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan (see September 26, 2001). In a 2005 book, also called Jawbreaker, Berntsen will describe how his team monitored multiple intelligence reports tracking bin Laden on a path through Jalalabad to Tora Bora (see November 13, 2001). He will claim that at the start of December 2001, one of his Arabic-speaking CIA agents finds a radio on a dead al-Qaeda fighter during a battle in the Tora Bora region. This agent hears bin Laden repeatedly attempt to rally his troops. On the same radio, that agent and another CIA agent who speaks Arabic hear bin Laden apologizing to his troops for getting them trapped and killed by US aerial bombing. Based on this information, Berntsen makes a formal request for 800 US troops to be deployed along the Pakistani border to prevent bin Laden’s escape. The request is not granted. Berntsen’s lawyer later claims, “Gary coordinated most of the boots on the ground. We knew where bin Laden was within a very circumscribed area. It was full of caves and tunnels but we could have bombed them or searched them one by one. The Pentagon failed to deploy sufficient troops to seal them off.” Although the area is heavily bombed, bin Laden is able to escape (see Mid-December 2001). (Berntsen and Pezzullo 2005, pp. 43-64; Baxter 8/14/2005; MSNBC 12/29/2005; Spiegel 1/3/2006) A Knight Ridder investigative report will later conclude, “While more than 1,200 US Marines [sit] at an abandoned air base in the desert 80 miles away, Franks and other commanders [rely] on three Afghan warlords and a small number of American, British, and Australian special forces to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from escaping across the mountains into Pakistan.” Military and intelligence officials warn Franks that the two main Afghan commanders cannot be trusted. This turns out to be correct, as the warlords accept bribes from al-Qaeda leaders to let them escape. (Knight Ridder 10/30/2004) In 2005, Berntsen will call himself a supporter of Bush and will say he approves of how CIA Director Porter Goss is running the CIA, but he will nonetheless sue the CIA for what he claims is excessive censorship of his book. (Baxter 8/14/2005; MSNBC 12/29/2005)

In late October, US intelligence reports begin noting that al-Qaeda fighters and leaders are moving into and around the Afghan city of Jalalabad. By early November, Osama bin Laden is said to be there. (Brown 10/20/2002) Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later recall: “We knew from day one the likely places that bin Laden would flee to. There had been lots of work done before 9/11 on where did he hang out, statistical analysis even. We knew Tora Bora was the place where he would be likely to go. People in CIA knew that; people in the counterterrorism community knew about it. We knew that what you should have done was to insert special forces—Rangers, that sort of thing—up into that area as soon as possible.” (Clarke 6/20/2006) Knight Ridder Newspapers will later report: “American intelligence analysts concluded that bin Laden and his retreating fighters were preparing to flee across the border. However, the US Central Command, which was running the war, made no move to block their escape. ‘It was obvious from at least early November that this area was to be the base for an exodus into Pakistan,’ said one intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. ‘All of this was known, and frankly we were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for it.’” (Brown 10/20/2002) The vast majority of al-Qaeda’s leaders and fighters will eventually escape into Pakistan. In 2006, Newsweek reporter and columnist Michael Hirsh will write that Bush’s decision to ignore accurate intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Tora Bora in favor of realigning the US’s war effort to focus on the “gathering threat” of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a strategic blunder that ranks alongside Adolf Hitler’s decision to invade the USSR in 1941. (Rich 2006, pp. 208)

Walter Isaacson. [Source: Amazon (.com)]CNN chairman Walter Isaacson orders his staff to balance the network’s coverage of civilian devastation in Afghan cities with reminders that the Taliban harbors murderous terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11. Isaacson says it “seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan.” In an internal memo to his international correspondents, he writes: “As we get good reports from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, we must redouble our efforts to make sure we do not seem to be simply reporting from their vantage or perspective. We must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harbored the terrorists responsible for killing close to 5,000 innocent people.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 10/31/2001) Inside sources later say that CNN is bowing to pressure from certain segments of its viewing audience. (Hurst 9/8/2002) Suggested Endings Reiterate Pentagon Statements - In a corollary memo, CNN’s head of standards and practices, Rick Davis, writes: “As we get enterprising reports from our correspondents or Al Jazeera inside Afghanistan, we must continue to make sure that we do not inadvertently seem to be reporting uncritically from the perspective or vantage of the Taliban. Also, given the enormity of the toll on innocent human lives in the US, we must remain careful not to focus excessively on the casualties and hardships in Afghanistan that will inevitably be a part of this war, or to forget that it is the Taliban leadership that is responsible for the situation Afghanistan is now in.” Davis orders CNN reports from Afghanistan to end with a formulaic reminder, such as the following: “We must keep in mind, after seeing reports like this, that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to harbor terrorists who have praised the September 11 attacks that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the US.” Another suggested ending: “The Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it is trying to minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban regime continues to harbor terrorists who are connected to the September 11 attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives in the US.” If relevant to the piece, the correspondent can end with the reminder that “the Pentagon has stressed that the Taliban continues to harbor the terrorists and the Taliban forces are reported to be hiding in populated areas and using civilians as human shields.” Davis concludes, “Even though it may start sounding rote, it is important that we make this point each time.” Isaacson tells reporters: “I want to make sure we’re not used as a propaganda platform. We’re entering a period in which there’s a lot more reporting and video from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. You want to make sure people understand that when they see civilian suffering there, it’s in the context of a terrorist attack that caused enormous suffering in the United States.” Presenters on CNN International are not subject to the edict. (Guardian 11/1/2001) Correspondents Fear 'Pro-American Stamp' on CNN Reporting - Some CNN correspondents worry that the network will put an overtly “pro-American stamp” on their reports; CNN executives worry that images showing misdirected US missile attacks landing on residential areas or Red Cross warehouses could be manipulated before they come out of Afghanistan. Some have criticized network coverage of the destruction rained on Afghan cities, towns, and villages by errant US bombs, while others say such coverage is necessary to present more than one side of the issue. CNN, like other American networks, airs hours of coverage every day of President Bush and his top officials. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 10/31/2001; Guardian 11/1/2001) In 2002, then-CNN foreign correspondent Anthony Collings will say that “the Pentagon must surely have been pleased to learn that whenever its planes killed the wrong Afghans, CNN would quickly provide PR damage control.” (Hurst 9/8/2002) Some Pundits Agree with CNN's Position - Fox News anchor Brit Hume agrees that stories of casualties should not be emphasized, explaining, “Civilian casualties are historically, by definition, a part of war.” National Public Radio White House correspondent Mara Liasson agrees with Hume, noting, “War is about killing people; civilian casualties are unavoidable.” (Bob Zelnick 3/22/2003) Other Networks Not Following Suit - Other US news networks do not follow CNN’s lead. Jim Murphy, executive producer of the CBS Evening News, says: “I wouldn’t order anybody to do anything like that. Our reporters are smart enough to know it has to be put in context.” NBC News vice president Bill Wheatley adds, “I’d give the American public more credit, frankly.” In Britain, the BBC has no plans to put any such reminders on its broadcasts, but a spokeswoman for that network says, “Correspondents may or may not decide to put in this sort of detail in their reports to put things in context.” (Guardian 11/1/2001) Issue Not Relevant if Good Journalistic Standards Observed - In 2003, veteran foreign correspondent Robert Zelnick will write that the entire issue should have been moot, as long as reporters and networks followed strong standards of journalism. It is newsworthy in a tactical, a psychological, and a propagandistic sense to report civilian casualties, Zelnick will observe, especially when the targeting of civilians is deliberate. He cites examples of media coverage in Korea, Kosovo, and especially Vietnam, that galvanized public debate on those wars. “[N]o reasonable case can be made for temporizing reports of the war’s impact on the civilians that US forces were fighting to ‘save,’” he will write. On the other side, he will cite the US invasion of Panama in 1989, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and Israel’s ongoing battles with the Palestinians as examples of wars fought with little US media coverage of civilian casualties; as a result, relatively few Americans raised objections or expressed doubts about those military actions. (Bob Zelnick 3/22/2003)

Al-Qaeda documents found in Kabul by CNN reporters [Source: CNN]As US forces invade Afghanistan, they and the journalists following them, uncover a quantity of al-Qaeda documents in training camps and houses used by the organization. The documents reveal a chilling array of terrorist plots. Some documents are apparently related to the planning of the 9/11 attacks. (Burke 11/18/2001) A New York Times reporter finds two houses in Kabul’s diplomatic district containing, among other papers, a map showing the locations of power plants in Europe, Africa and Asia; training notebooks in military tactics and bomb-making; a list of Florida flight schools and a form that comes with “Microsoft Flight Simulator 98”; a document entitled “Before and After Precautions For Using Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Warfare”; and a notebook on how to make nitroglycerine, dynamite, and fertilizer bombs, with a note next to one of the formulas saying “the type used in Oklahoma.” (Rohde 11/17/2001) CNN reporters are led by Afghan police to a house in an upscale district of Kabul, which is apparently the same as the one visited by the New York Times reporter. In it they find a quantity of documents revealing al-Qaeda’s interest in acquiring nuclear weapons (see Mid-August 2001) and conventional explosives. According to David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert who is asked by CNN to analyze the documents, “These are people who are thinking through problems in how to cause destruction, for a well-thought-through political strategy.” (Ensor 12/4/2001; CNN 1/24/2002; Boettcher and Arnesen 1/25/2002; Albright 11/6/2002) However, an extensive review of the documents later concludes that al-Qaeda’s main activity was to support the Taliban. “Reporters for The New York Times collected over 5,000 pages of documents from abandoned safe houses and training camps destroyed by bombs.… The documents show that the training camps, which the Bush administration has described as factories churning out terrorists, were instead focused largely on creating an army to support the Taliban, which was waging a long ground war against the Northern Alliance.… They show no specific plans for terror operations abroad, and while hinting at an ambition to use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, they contain no evidence that the groups possess them.” (Rohde and Chivers 3/17/2002)

According to author Ron Suskind, some time in November the US makes a deal with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan will seal off the passages to Pakistan from the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan where Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are expected to gather. In return, the US will give Pakistan nearly a billion dollars in new economic aid. Pakistan will fail to effectively seal the border in the next month (see December 10, 2001) and almost the entire force in Tora Bora will escape into Pakistan. (Suskind 2006, pp. 58)

In a series of multinational conferences held to discuss the future of Afghanistan, Western leaders make great pledges and promises to Afghanistan. For instance British Prime Minster Tony Blair says, “We will not walk away from Afghanistan, as the outside world has done so many times before.” (Osborne 5/25/2003) President Bush says, “The Afghan people will know the generosity of America and its allies.” (Pilger 9/20/2003) US Secretary of State Colin Powell says, “[We] have an enormous obligation—not only the United States, but the whole international community—an enormous obligation to not leave the Afghan people in the lurch, to not walk away as has been done in the past.… We cannot wait; we must act as fast as we can. We must act as soon as possible.” (Stout 11/20/2001) In a January 2002 donor conference, countries around the world pledge $4.5 billion to aid Afghanistan. (Prusher 11/19/2002) However, new Afghan leader Hamid Karzai says, “We believe Afghanistan needs $15-20bn to reach the stage we were in 1979.” Most outside observers will agree that the amount pledged is insufficient. (Osborne 5/25/2003) Yet even that amount will fall far short of the aid actually given to Afghanistan in subsequent years (see Spring 2003).

Many locals in Afghanistan reportedly witness a remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul around this time. One local businessman says, “We don’t understand how they weren’t all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning.” This convoy was thought to have contained al-Qaeda’s top officials (Bhatia 7/22/2002)

The US military loses both a helicopter and a drone in Afghanistan on the same day. The Taliban claim that the helicopter was shot down and that up to 50 US soldiers died in the crash, which was just south of Kabul. “All together between 40 to 50 Americans have died in both these incidents,” Qari Fazil Rabi, a Taliban information ministry official, tells Reuters. “You can see the bodies of the Americans on board the helicopters with their uniforms.” However, the Pentagon dismisses the claims, blaming bad weather for the crash landing of the special forces helicopter and the loss of the drone. According to the Pentagon, the helicopter had a crew of four and was on a mission to pick up a sick soldier. The crew members were injured in the crash, but were rescued by another helicopter, and the downed helicopter was later destroyed by F-14 Tomcats from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. According to The Guardian, “Such a search-and-destroy mission would only take place if the items on the helicopter were considered extremely sensitive and the US military did not want it to fall into enemy hands.” (Guardian 11/3/2001)

The US, lacking local agents and intelligence in Afghanistan, is said to be heavily reliant on the ISI for information about the Taliban. The US is said to be confident in the ISI, even though the ISI was the main supporter of the Taliban up until 9/11. Knight Ridder Newspapers comments, “Anti-Taliban Afghans, foreign diplomats, and Pakistani government security officials say that pro-Taliban officers remain deeply embedded within ISI and might still be helping America’s enemies inside Afghanistan.” A leader of the resistance to the Taliban says, “There are lots of (ISI) officers who are fully committed to the way of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.” Former ISI Director Hamid Gul says, “It is a foolish commander who depends on someone else’s intelligence, especially when that someone doesn’t like him and was once friendly with the enemy.”
(Zielenziger and Tamayo 11/3/2001) Later in the month another article notes that the CIA continues to rely on the ISI for covert actions against the Taliban. One CIA agent says, “The same Pakistani case officers who built up the Taliban are doing the translating for the CIA. Our biggest mistake is allowing the ISI to be our eyes and ears.”
(Diebel 11/5/2001)

A video still of bin Laden filmed during his interview with Hamid Mir in November 2001. [Source: National Geographic]Pakistani reporter Hamid Mir is taken blindfolded to a location somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan to interview bin Laden. The sound of antiaircraft fire can be heard in the distance. Bin Laden looks paler and his beard is greyer. While he doesn’t claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, he says that Muslims were behind it and that Muslims have the moral right to commit such attacks because they are done in self-defense. He says, “I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.” He also says, “This place may be bombed. And we will be killed. We love death. The US loves life. That is the big difference between us.” (Laden 11/10/2001; Thomas 11/26/2001)

The Taliban abandon the strategic northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, allowing the Northern Alliance to take control. (Kugler 8/19/2002) The Taliban abandons the rest of Northern Afghanistan in the next few days, except the city of Kunduz, where most of the Taliban flee. Kunduz falls on November 25, but not before most of the thousands of fighters there are airlifted out (see November 14-25, 2001). (Hersh 1/21/2002)

At the opening of the UN General Assembly, which is delayed by seven weeks due to the 9/11 attacks, government leaders lend nearly unanimous support to the military campaign in Afghanistan, though the operation has not received the express prior authorization from the UN Security Council that is usually necessary for the lawful use of military force for any other reason than pure self-defense. (United Nations 11/16/2001)

Pakistani forces capture Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan national, apparently as he is trying to flee Afghanistan. Al-Libi is considered an al-Qaeda leader and head of the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan for many years. (Priest 6/27/2004) He is the first al-Qaeda figure captured after 9/11 of any importance. He will be transferred to US custody one month later (see December 19, 2001).

Bin Laden gave a speech in front of about 1,000 supporters on November 10, 2001 in the town of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. (Smucker 3/4/2002) On the night of November 13, a convoy of 1,000 or more al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters escapes from Jalalabad and reaches the fortress of Tora Bora after hours of driving and then walking. Bin Laden is believed to be with them, riding in one of “several hundred cars” in the convoy. The US bombs the nearby Jalalabad airport, but apparently does not attack the convoy. (Smucker 3/4/2002; Brown 10/20/2002) The Northern Alliance captures Jalalabad the next day. (Sydney Morning Herald 11/14/2001)

Northern Alliance forces entering Kabul. One holds a poster of recently assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. [Source: Getty Images] (click image to enlarge)Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, falls to the Northern Alliance. The Taliban will abandon the rest of the country over the next few weeks. (BBC 11/13/2001) The US and Pakistan did not want the Northern Alliance to conquer Kabul for ethnic and strategic regions. But after a change in US bombing tactics, the Taliban front line unexpectedly and suddenly collapsed, making this conquest all but inevitable (see October-Early November 2001). It is later reported that the US paid about $70 million in bribes to get dozens of Taliban leaders to surrender or change sides. This is credited with assisting the sudden collapse of Taliban forces. (Bushell 2/7/2002; Woodward 11/18/2002)

Jamal Udeen, a British national of Jamaican descent who has been imprisoned since October (see October 2001), along with a handful of other non-Afghans, is left in a Kandahar prison when the Taliban leadership flees the advancing Northern Alliance troops. Having lost his passport, Udeen does not know how to leave the country. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visits the jail and asks him if he wants to go to Pakistan together with some Pakistanis who were also prisoners of the Taliban and who will be allowed to cross the border. But with “no money and no way of getting back to Britain,” Udeen decides to remain in Kandahar. (Prince and Jones 3/12/2004)

Two days after the opening of the UN General Assembly, and one day after the Taliban defeat, the Security Council adopts Resolution 1378. Although it stays short of endorsing the military campaign, it comes very close to actually providing retroactive authorization. The resolution applauds the goals of the US’s actions, supports its motives, and condemns the the Taliban and al-Qaeda. (United Nations 11/14/2001)

At the request of the Pakistani government, the US secretly allows rescue flights into the besieged Taliban stronghold of Kunduz, in Northern Afghanistan, to save Pakistanis fighting for the Taliban (and against US forces) and bring them back to Pakistan. Pakistan’s President “Musharraf won American support for the airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of Pakistani Army men and intelligence operatives would jeopardize his political survival.”
(Hersh 1/21/2002) Dozens of senior Pakistani military officers, including two generals, are flown out. (Hersh 2/21/2003) In addition, it is reported that the Pakistani government assists 50 trucks filled with foreign fighters to escape the town. (Filkins and Gall 11/24/2001) Many news articles at the time suggest an airlift is occurring. (Huggler 11/16/2001; Filkins and Gall 11/24/2001; George 11/26/2001; Tanner 11/26/2001; Campbell 11/27/2001; Moran 11/29/2001) Significant media coverage fails to develop, however. The US and Pakistani governments deny the existence of the airlift. (US Department of State 11/16/2001; Hersh 1/21/2002) On December 2, when asked to assure that the US did not allow such an airlift, Rumsfeld says, “Oh, you can be certain of that. We have not seen a single—to my knowledge, we have not seen a single airplane or helicopter go into Afghanistan in recent days or weeks and extract people and take them out of Afghanistan to any country, let alone Pakistan.”
(MSNBC 4/13/2003) Reporter Seymour Hersh believes that Rumsfeld must have given approval for the airlift. (Hersh 2/21/2003) However, The New Yorker magazine reports, “What was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus.” A CIA analyst says, “Many of the people they spirited away were in the Taliban leadership” who Pakistan wanted for future political negotiations. US intelligence was “supposed to have access to them, but it didn’t happen,” he says. According to Indian intelligence, airlifts grow particularly intense in the last three days before the city falls on November 25. Of the 8,000 remaining al-Qaeda, Pakistani, and Taliban, about 5,000 are airlifted out and 3,000 surrender. (Hersh 1/21/2002) Hersh later claims that “maybe even some of bin Laden’s immediate family were flown out on those evacuations.”
(Hersh 2/21/2003)

Ismail Khan. [Source: US Navy]Independent warlord Ismail Khan’s troops and other Northern Alliance fighters are reportedly ready to take back Pashtun areas from Taliban control at this time. Khan, former and future governor of Herat province and one of Afghanistan’s most successful militia leaders, later maintains that “we could have captured all the Taliban and the al-Qaeda groups. We could have arrested Osama bin Laden with all of his supporters.” (Komarow 1/2/2002) However, according to Khan, his forces hold back at the request of the US, who allegedly do not want the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance to conquer Pashtun areas. British newspapers at the time report bin Laden is surrounded in a 30-mile area, but the conquest of Kandahar takes weeks without the Northern Alliance (see November 25, 2001). However, more reliable reports place bin Laden near Tora Bora by mid-November (see November 13, 2001). (CNN 11/18/2001)

Mohammed Atef. [Source: FBI]Al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef (a.k.a. Abu Hafs) is believed to have been killed in Gardez, near Kabul, Afghanistan. Atef is considered al-Qaeda’s military commander, and one of its top leaders. Initial reports claim he was killed by a US bombing raid, but later reports will reveal he was hit by Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. (US Department of State 11/16/2001; James 11/17/2001; Thomas and Hosenball 11/11/2002) CIA Director George Tenet will later indicate that Atef was “a key player in the 9/11 attacks,” but the exact nature of his role has not been revealed. (Tenet 2007, pp. 187) Documents and videotapes are discovered by US forces in the rubble after the raid. Details on two upcoming al-Qaeda attacks are discovered. Investigators examining the videotapes find images of about 50 al-Qaeda operatives (see November 15-Late December 2001). (Suskind 2006, pp. 57)

Hazrat Ali. [Source: Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images]Hazrat Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, warlords in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, both later claim that they are first approached in the middle of November by US officers and asked to take part in an attack on Tora Bora. They agree. (Smucker 3/4/2002) By late November, the US-allied warlords assemble a motley force of about 2,500 Afghans supported by a fleet of old Russian tanks at the foot of the Tora Bora mountains. They are poorly equipped and trained and have low morale. The better-equipped Taliban and al-Qaeda are 5,000 feet up in snow-covered valleys, forests, and caves. (Weaver 9/11/2005) On December 3, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor overhears Ali in a Jalalabad, Afghanistan, hotel making a deal to give three al-Qaeda operatives safe passage out of the country. (Smucker 3/4/2002) The US chooses to rely mainly on Hazrat Ali’s forces for the ground offensive against Tora Bora. Ali supposedly pays one of his aides $5,000 to block the main escape routes to Pakistan. But in fact this aide helps Taliban and al-Qaeda escape along these routes. Afghan villagers in the area later even claim that they took part in firefights with fighters working for Ali’s aide who were providing cover to help al-Qaeda and Taliban escape. (Smucker 3/4/2002) Author James Risen later claims, “CIA officials are now convinced that Hazrat Ali’s forces allowed Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants to flee Tora Bora into Pakistan. Said a CIA source, ‘We realized those guys just opened the door. It wasn’t a big secret.’” While the US will never publicly blame Ali for assisting in the escape, the CIA will internally debate having Ali arrested by the new Afghan government. But this idea will be abandoned and Ali will become the new strongman in the Jalalabad region. (Risen 2006, pp. 168-169) CIA official Michael Scheuer later will comment, “Everyone who was cognizant of how Afghan operations worked would have told Mr. Tenet that [his plan to rely on Afghan warlords] was nuts. And as it turned out, he was.… The people we bought, the people Mr. Tenet said we would own, let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan into Pakistan.” (Scheuer 6/20/2006)

A US airstrike in the Tora Bora region. [Source: Gary Bernsten]Heavy US bombing of Tora Bora, the Taliban and al-Qaeda mountainous stronghold near the Pakistani border, begins. A large convoy containing bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders arrived in Tora Bora about three day earlier. The son of a tribal elder later recalls, “At first, we thought that the US military was trying to frighten the Arabs out, since they were only bombing from one side.” Rather than send in US ground forces in large numbers, the US chooses to supply two local warlords and have their fighters do most of the fighting while heavy bombing continues. Within days, a small number of US special forces are brought in to assist the local warlords. One of the warlords chosen, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, was actually living in exile in France and has to be flown to Afghanistan. He is “known to many as a ruthless player in the regional smuggling business.” Between 1,500 to 2,000 of bin Laden’s fighters are in Tora Bora when the battle begins. (Smucker 3/4/2002; Brown 10/20/2002) There are two main mountain passes out of Tora Bora and into Pakistan. From the beginning on this day, eyewitnesses report that the US bombs only one pass. (Nordland, Yousafzai, and Dehghanpisheh 8/11/2002) The fighting and bombing will continue through early December (see December 5-17, 2001) while bin Laden and most of his forces escape via the other pass (see November 28-30, 2001).

A Tora Bora cave used by al-Qaeda forces in December 2001. [Source: Chris Hondros / Getty Images]According to Newsweek, approximately 600 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including many senior leaders, escape Afghanistan on this day. This is the first day of heavy bombing of the Tora Bora region (see November 16, 2001). There are two main routes out of the Tora Bora cave complex to Pakistan. The US bombs only one route, so the 600 are able to escape without being attacked using the other route. Hundreds will continue to use the escape route for weeks, generally unbothered by US bombing or Pakistani border guards. US officials later privately admit they lost an excellent opportunity to close a trap. (Nordland, Yousafzai, and Dehghanpisheh 8/11/2002) On the same day, the media reports that the US is studying routes bin Laden might use to escape Tora Bora (Drogin and Miller 11/16/2001) , but the one escape route is not closed, and by some accounts bin Laden and others escape into Pakistan will use this same route several weeks later (see November 28-30, 2001). High-ranking British officers will later privately complain, “American commanders had vetoed a proposal to guard the high-altitude trails, arguing that the risks of a firefight, in deep snow, gusting winds, and low-slung clouds, were too high.” (Burns 9/30/2002)

When asked under what terms the US might be willing to accept a surrender from Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld responds: “The United States is not inclined to negotiate surrenders, nor are we in a position, with relatively small numbers of forces on the ground, to accept prisoners.… Any idea that those people in that town who have been fighting so viciously and who refuse to surrender should end up in some sort of a negotiation which would allow them to leave the country and go off and destabilize other countries and engage in terrorist attacks on the United States is something that I would certainly do everything I could to prevent. They’re people who have done terrible things.… The idea of their getting out of the country and going off to make their mischief somewhere else is not a happy prospect. So my hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner [by the Northern Alliance].” (US Department of Defense 11/19/2001; Cobain and Whitworth 11/20/2001)

When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is asked by a reporter what the US might do to prevent the Arab Taliban and Chechen soldiers surrendering in Kunduz from going free, Rumsfeld responds, “It would be most unfortunate if the foreigners in Afghanistan—the al-Qaeda and the Chechens and others who have been there working with the Taliban—if those folks were set free and in any way allowed to go to another country and cause the same kind of terrorist acts.” (US Department of Defense 11/20/2001; Fox News 11/22/2001; Buzbee 11/22/2001)

Neoconservative professor Eliot Cohen writes that the Afghan war is misnamed. It should be, he says, the latest salvo in “World War IV,” the US-led fight against Islamist terrorism. In agreement with other neoconservatives (see 1992, February 2002, April 3, 2003, and Spring 2007), Cohen says that World War III was the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Like the Cold War, this “world war” against militant Islam “is, in fact, global;… will involve a mixture of violent and nonviolent efforts;… will require mobilization of skill, expertise and resources, if not of vast numbers of soldiers;… may go on for a long time; and… has ideological roots.” Afghanistan is “just one front in World War IV,” Cohen asserts, and after the US destroys al-Qaeda and kills its leadership, including, presumably, Osama bin Laden, it must then engage in new battles. Cohen recommends that the US ally itself with secular democracies in the Muslim world, and actively target Islamic regimes that sponsor terrorism, including Iraq (which he calls “the obvious candidate,” as it “not only helped al-Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly… and developed weapons of mass destruction”). After overthrowing the Iraqi regime, he counsels the US to “mobilize in earnest.” (Cohen 11/20/2001)

Foreign Taliban fighters agree to be transported to Erganak, located 12 miles west of Kunduz. But to their surprise they arrive in a desert on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif. According to some sources, the “foreigners [were] tricked into going to Mazar on the understanding they would attack it.” Tension increases when they realize they have actually surrendered. After some negotiating, a second agreement is made with Amir Jan, a Northern Alliance commander with Pashtun roots. The foreign fighters are told by their Taliban commander to disarm—but are not told that they will later be detained as prisoners. Amir Jan tells the Guardian of London: “The foreigners thought that after surrendering to the Northern Alliance they would be free. They didn’t think they would be put in jail.” (Harding 11/27/2001; August 11/28/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001)

Taliban fighters being transported to Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]The foreign Taliban fighters, who surrendered in Kunduz the day before (see November 23, 2001), are taken into custody by General Dostum who wants to send them to a Soviet-built airfield in Mazar-i-Sharif. But US Special Forces say the runway might be needed for military operations. A last minute decision is then made to transport the prisoners to Dostum’s 19th Century Qala-i-Janghi fortress. Prior to leaving for the compound, all of the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are supposed to be disarmed, but for some reason fighters in only three of the five transport vehicles are actually checked. (Harding 11/27/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001) The foreign Taliban fighters arrive at the Qala-i-Janghi fort early in the morning. When some of Dostum’s men attempt to frisk the group of fighters who have not yet been disarmed, one of the Chechen prisoners detonates a hand grenade, killing himself, several other prisoners, and two Northern Alliance commanders. As a result, the weapons search is abandoned and the prisoners are herded into a stable area north of the fort. Between two and eight of the prisoners in the stable area blow themselves up that night. As a result, the Northern Alliance decides to relocate them into the basement of the fortress. (August 11/28/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001; Soloway 12/1/2001)

It is believed bin Laden makes a speech before a crowd of about 1,000 followers in the village of Milawa, Afghanistan. This village is on the route from Tora Bora to the Pakistani border, about eight to ten hours by walking. In his last known public appearance, bin Laden encourages his followers to leave Afghanistan, so they could regroup and fight again. (Smucker 3/4/2002; Brown 10/20/2002) It is believed he crosses the border into Pakistan a few days later (see November 28-30, 2001; November 28, 2001).

US troops are set to land near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Afghanistan (see November 26, 2001). (Kugler 8/19/2002) Apparently, as the noose tightens around Kandahar, Hamid Karzai, the new leader of Afghanistan, makes a deal with the Taliban. He gives them a general amnesty in return for surrender of the city. Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar is allowed to escape “with dignity” as part of the deal. However, the US says it will not abide by the deal and Karzai then says he will not let Omar go free after all. Taliban forces begin surrendering on December 7. (Baker 12/8/2001) Omar escapes.

Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]After a sleepless night in the overcrowded basement in Dostum’s fortress, a group of Taliban prisoners, including John Walker Lindh, are led out, one by one, by the guards. They are searched, tied up and later seated in rows on an open lawn. (Soloway 12/1/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001) Simon Brooks, head of the International Committee for the Red Cross in northern Afghanistan, arrives at the Qala-i-Janghi compound seeking an assurance from Said Kamal, Dostum’s security chief, that the prisoners will be treated in accordance with international law. He also wants to write the prisoners’ names down and get messages for their families. (Harding et al. 12/1/2001) Another official from the Red Cross, Olivier Martin, is also inside Qala-i-Janghi making sure that the prisoners are being cared for in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. (Huggler 11/29/2001) Meanwhile, Northern Alliance fighters are tying up prisoners at the south end of the fortress. (August 11/28/2001; Hilto 11/29/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001) The prisoners are scared and think the Northern Alliance is preparing to execute them. They believe that the two television crews—from Reuters and the German station ARD—present intend to film their deaths. One of the prisoners recalls, “Our hands were tied, and they were beating and kicking some of us. Some of the Mujahedin [Taliban] were scared, crying. They thought we were all going to be killed.” (Gall 11/28/2001; Soloway 12/1/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001) One guard hits Lindh in the back of his head, so hard that he “nearly [loses] consciousness.” (United States of America v. John Walker Lindh 6/13/2002 )

Two CIA agents, “Dave” and Johnny Michael Spann, are singling out prisoners for interrogation in an effort to determine their affiliations and backgrounds and screen them for possible links to al-Qaeda. Two television crews—from Reuters and the German station ARD—are present. John Walker Lindh has been pointed out to Spann as a Westerner, or at least someone who speaks English. Spann approaches Lindh and begins asking him questions: (August 11/28/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001; Soloway 12/6/2001) Spann - “[Speaking to Lindh] Hey you. Right here with your head down. Look at me. I know you speak English. Look at me. Where did you get the British military sweater?” Lindh does not respond and Spann walks away. A few moments later, Northern Alliance soldiers approach Lindh and tighten the ropes around his elbows. A Northern Alliance officer kicks him lightly in the stomach. Later, Lindh is brought over to a blanket covering bare earth and pushed down so he sits cross-legged on the blanket. Spann then squats down on the edge of the blanket, and faces Lindh: Spann - “[Speaking to Lindh] Where are you from? Where are you from? You believe in what you’re doing here that much, you’re willing to be killed here? How were you recruited to come here? Who brought you here? Hey! [He snaps his fingers in front of Lindh’s face. Lindh is unresponsive] Who brought you here? Wake up! Who brought you here to Afghanistan How did you get here? [Long pause] What, are you puzzled?” Spann kneels on the blanket and attempts to photograph Lindh with a digital camera. Spann - “Put your head up. Don’t make me have to get them to hold your head up. Push your hair back. Push your hair back so I can see your face.” An Afghan soldier pulls Walker’s hair back, holding his head up for the picture. Spann - “You got to talk to me. All I want to do is talk to you and find out what your story is. I know you speak English.” Dave then walks up and speaks with Spann. Dave - “Mike!” Spann - “[to Dave] Yeah, he won’t talk to me.” Dave - “OK, all right. We explained what the deal is to him.” Spann - “I was explaining to the guy we just want to talk to him, find out what his story is.” Dave - “The problem is, he’s got to decide if he wants to live or die and die here. We’re just going to leave him, and he’s going to f_cking sit in prison the rest of his f_cking short life. It’s his decision, man. We can only help the guys who want to talk to us. We can only get the Red Cross to help so many guys.” Spann - “[to Lindh] Do you know the people here you’re working with are terrorists and killed other Muslims? There were several hundred Muslims killed in the bombing in New York City. Is that what the Koran teaches? I don’t think so. Are you going to talk to us?” Walker does not respond. Dave - “[to Spann] That’s all right man. Gotta give him a chance, he got his chance.” Spann and Dave stand and keep talking to each other. Spann - “[to Dave] Did you get a chance to look at any of the passports?” Dave - “There’s a couple of Saudis and I didn’t see the others.” Spann - “I wonder what this guy’s got?” Walker is then taken back to the group of prisoners by an Afghan guard. (Soloway 12/6/2001)

CIA agent “Dave”. [Source: CNN/House of War]One of the prisoners who is being interrogated by the two CIA agents tells Mike Spann that he has come to Afghanistan “to kill” him. With that, the prisoner lunges towards him. At this point accounts differ over what happens. According to an early account, Mike Spann immediately shoots the prisoner and three others dead with his pistol before the nearby Taliban prisoners join the skirmish and “beat, kick, and bite” Spann to death. (August 11/28/2001) In the other account, the prisoner who lunged towards Spann, used a grenade to blow him and Spann up, killing both of them immediately. (Harding et al. 12/1/2001) “Dave,” the second CIA agent, then shoots at least one of the foreign Taliban fighters dead and flees the vicinity. He goes to General Dostum’s headquarters in the north side of the fort where he contacts the American embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan using a satellite phone borrowed from the German TV crew. He tells the embassy, “We have lost control of the situation. Send in helicopters and troops.” (Harding et al. 12/1/2001) One witness later recalls, “David asked his superiors for choppers to be brought in, as well as ground troops to get everyone out. They sent about 40 American soldiers, but the choppers were too far away in Uzbekistan. David’s people offered to bring in gunships and bomb the Taliban. They would flatten the whole castle and kill us all. David told them twice they shouldn’t do that. They were really pressing for airstrikes and after three hours they started.” (August 11/28/2001) Meanwhile, Dostum’s soldiers began to shoot indiscriminately at the rows of bound prisoners. Some are killed and as prisoners stand up and run for cover, more are shot in their flight. John Walker Lindh too tries to run but after two or three paces a bullet hits him in his right thigh and he falls to the ground. Unable to walk, with chaos all around him, Lindh pretends to be dead. He remains on the ground for the next twelve hours. The Taliban soldiers soon overpower their Northern Alliance captors, take their weapons and break into the arms depot located towards the center for the compound where they help themselves to Dostum’s mortars and rocket launchers. (August 11/28/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001; United States of America v. John Walker Lindh 6/13/2002 )

SAS soldiers fighting for Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]Eight British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers dressed in civilian clothes arrive at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress in Land Rovers after receiving orders from US Central Command in Florida. They position themselves on the perimeter of the fortress and shoot over the walls at the prisoners inside who are armed with thirty guns, two anti-tank guns, and two grenade launchers. “They pulled up in two long-range desert patrol vehicles,” one witness tells reporters. “They were clearly British and not American. They have been leading the firing at the Taliban’s positions. You can tell they are special forces because their firing is more disciplined: they use single shots rather than bursts.” Some time later, six uniformed American Special Forces officers arrive, positioning themselves in the southwest corner of the fort to prevent any Taliban prisoners from fleeing the compound. (Harding 11/27/2001; August 11/28/2001; BBC 12/1/2001)

CIA officer “Dave” (center) and US special forces near Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]American jets arrive over the Qala-i-Janghi fortress, and over the next two days, drop nine or 10 bombs directly into the compound. The aerial attacks are coordinated by Special Forces and CIA operatives on the ground. (Harding 11/27/2001; August 11/28/2001; BBC 12/1/2001) The air strikes drive surviving detainees into the basement for cover. As night falls, John Walker Lindh is helped by his comrades into the basement as well. They will remain there for seven hellish days. (United States of America v. John Walker Lindh 6/13/2002 ) Describing how the scene appears the following day, the London Times reports: “The nighttime raids left many bodies half-buried in the ground. Limbs and torsos rose out of the disturbed ground like tree trunks after a forest fire.” (August 11/28/2001)

US Marines landing near Kandahar on December 10, 2001. [Source: Earnie Grafton / Agence France-Presse]A force of about 1,200 US marines settles in the countryside around Kandahar, Afghanistan. This will make up nearly the entire US force actually on the ground in the country during the war to remove the Taliban from power. Over the previous week, CIA Deputy Counter Terrorism Center Director Hank Crumpton had been in contact with Gen. Tommy Franks and other military leaders at CENTCOM, arguing that “the back door was open” in Tora Bora and the troops should go there instead. But Franks responded that the momentum of the CIA’s effort to corner bin Laden could be lost waiting for the troops to arrive. (Suskind 2006, pp. 58) The marines will end up being largely unused in the Kandahar region while bin Laden will escape from Tora Bora. In 2005, Gary Berntsen, who was in charge of an on-the-ground CIA team trying to find bin Laden, will claim that Franks “was either badly misinformed by his own people or blinded by the fog of war. I’d made it clear in my reports that our Afghan allies were hardly anxious to get at al-Qaeda in Tora Bora.” (Spiegel 1/3/2006) The Afghan allies the US relies on to find bin Laden will actually help him escape (see Mid-November 2001-Mid-December 2001).

A Northern Alliance tank fires on Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]Northern Alliance troops establish a command post near Qala-i-Janghi’s northeast tower where they position a tank and begin shelling prisoners at the south end of the compound. (BBC 12/1/2001; CNN 8/3/2002)

US special forces in Afghanistan. [Source: CNN/House of War]Four members of US Special Forces and eight soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division join the US and SAS troops already at the Qala-i-Janghi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif. They call in more airstrikes. During the two days of airstrikes, which began the day before (see (3:30 p.m.) November 25, 2001), two bombs miss their targets. One strays off into a field located more than a kilometer away, while the other, a 2,000-lb laser-guided bomb dropped on November 26, between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m., mistakenly hits a Northern Alliance tank killing at least four Northern Alliance soldiers and wounding five US soldiers and two SAS soldiers. (BBC 12/1/2001; CNN 8/3/2002)

A Taliban fighter killed in the battle for Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]Amnesty International calls for an inquiry into the violence at Qala-i-Janghi. The organization states, “An urgent inquiry should look into what triggered this violent incident, including any shortcomings in the holding and processing of the prisoners, and into the proportionality of the response by United Front, US, and UK forces. It should make urgent recommendations to ensure that other instances of surrender and holding of prisoners do not lead to similar disorders and loss of life, and that the key role of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in overseeing the processing and treatment of prisoners is facilitated.” (Amnesty International 11/27/2001)

Mike Spann. [Source: CIA]In the morning, CIA agent “Dave,” US Special Forces, SAS soldiers, and an additional 200 Northern Alliance troops arrive at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress to fight the remaining ten or so Taliban fighters who are still resisting. One of the US soldiers warns journalists not to be inside the compound at night. (August 11/28/2001; BBC 12/1/2001; CNN 8/3/2002) “To clear the last pockets of Taliban resistance in the afternoon, Alliance soldiers approached the houses in the middle of the compound and fired at random into basement windows,” the London Times later reports. “Some 20-liter petrol canisters were thrown in, then grenades.” (August 11/28/2001) Alliance soldiers roaming the complex shoot at the bodies to make sure there are no survivors. They also loot corpses, stealing rifles, boots, clothing, and even gold fillings from their teeth. (Huggler 11/29/2001) According to an escaped prisoner, a Northern Alliance tank runs over the bodies of injured survivors. (Pakistan News Service (Newark, CA) 12/3/2001) A tank attacks the western half of the compound and reportedly kills the last two remaining holdouts who are still fighting. By noon, “the ground was littered with countless mangled bodies,” the London Times reports. (August 11/28/2001; BBC 12/1/2001) Foreign reporters are allowed in the compound. One Associated Press photographer sees Northern Alliance soldiers removing the bindings from the hands of the dead Taliban fighters. (Huggler 11/29/2001) In the afternoon, it is discovered that there are about 100 survivors in the basement of a one-story building at the center of the compound. US Special Forces order Northern Alliance soldiers to pour diesel fuel into the basement and ignite it. (Soloway 12/1/2001) General Dostum’s men pour fuel down several air ducts, two of which lead into a room where John Walker Lindh is sitting, drenching him. Unable to walk, he has to crawl away from the air ducts. Some minutes later, the fuel is lit and fire spreads quickly throughout the basement. “People were being burned alive,” an eyewitness will recall. Lindh loses consciousness in the smoke-filled air, while Dostum’s soldiers fire rockets amidst the surviving Taliban. The report by Lindh’s defense will say, “Human remains litter the entire basement floor.” (United States of America v. John Walker Lindh 6/13/2002 ) At dusk, US soldiers recover CIA agent Mike Spann’s (see September 10, 2001) booby-trapped body. (CNN 8/3/2002)

The US intensifies its aerial attack against the Qala-i-Janghi fortress. An AC-130 Spectre gunship rakes the compound with machine gun and cannon fire for several hours at close range. One US Special Forces soldier calls the bombing, “fireworks you’ll never forget.” It destroys the fortress’s armories. (August 11/28/2001; Harding et al. 12/1/2001; CNN 8/3/2002) Alim Razim, General Dostum’s adviser, reportedly says, “Those who are left over will be dead.” (August 11/28/2001; Hilto 11/29/2001)

A US Special Forces soldier stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina, later (anonymously) claims that the US has bin Laden pinned in a certain Tora Bora cave on this day, but fails to act. Special Forces soldiers allegedly sit by waiting for orders and watch two helicopters fly into the area where bin Laden is believed to be, load up passengers, and fly toward Pakistan. No other soldiers have come forward to corroborate the story, but bin Laden is widely believed to have been in the Tora Bora area at the time. (Newton 8/2/2002) Newsweek separately reports that many locals “claim that mysterious black helicopters swept in, flying low over the mountains at night, and scooped up al-Qaeda’s top leaders.”
(Nordland, Yousafzai, and Dehghanpisheh 8/11/2002) Perhaps coincidentally, on the same day this story is reported, months after the fact, the media also will report a recent spate of strange deaths at the same military base in Fayetteville. Five soldiers and their wives died since June 2002 in apparent murder-suicides. At least three were Special Forces soldiers recently returned from Afghanistan. (Buncombe 8/2/2002) Other reports indicate that bin Laden crosses the border into Pakistan by foot instead (see November 28-30, 2001).

The Northern Alliance assaults Qala-i-Janghi fortress. [Source: CNN/House of War]Northern Alliance General Abdul Rashid Dostum returns to the Qala-i-Janghi fortress from Kunduz. Three health officials attempting to enter the basement where Taliban survivers are still holding out are shot by armed Taliban who refuse to surrender. Several Taliban mullahs brought in by Dostum are unable to convince the holdouts to surrender. (CNN 8/3/2002)

Bin Laden made his last known public appearance on November 25, 2001, giving a speech in the village of Milawa, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border (see November 25, 2001). According to later interviews with many locals in the area, it is believed he and four loyalists cross the Pakistan border between November 28 and 30. (Smucker 2/23/2002; Smucker 3/4/2002) According to another account, bin Laden crosses the border at this time by helicopter instead (see November 28, 2001). His voice continues to be heard until December 10 on short wave radio transmissions in the Tora Bora enclave he had proportedly left. According to later interviews with loyalists, he calls from Pakistan to Tora Bora to urge his followers to keep fighting. But according to some eyewitness accounts, bin Laden is still in Tora Bora to make the radio transmissions, then leaves with about 30 followers by horseback. (Smucker 3/4/2002; Nordland, Yousafzai, and Dehghanpisheh 8/11/2002)

Ayub Afridi, a well-known Afghan warlord and drug baron, is released from prison in Pakistan and sent to Afghanistan with the apparent approval of both the US and Pakistani governments. Afridi had just begun serving a seven year sentence after being convicted of attempting to smuggle over six tons of hashish into Belgium. The Pakistani government gave no explanation for his release nor pointed to any law allowing the release. The Asia Times claims, “Afridi was a key player in the Afghan war of resistance against the Soviet Union’s occupying troops in the decade up to 1989.” The CIA lacked the billions of dollars need to fund the Afghan resistance. “As a result, they decided to generate funds through the poppy-rich Afghan soil and heroin production and smuggling to finance the Afghan war. Afridi was the kingpin of this plan. All of the major Afghan warlords, except for the Northern Alliance’s Ahmed Shah Massoud, who had his own opium fiefdom in northern Afghanistan, were a part of Afridi’s coalition of drug traders in the CIA-sponsored holy war against the Soviets.” The Asia Times speculates that Afridi, an ethic Pashtun, was released to help unify Pashtun warlord support for the new US supported Afghan government. Afridi also served three years in a US prison for drug smuggling in the mid-1990s. (Shahzad 12/4/2001)

Abdullah Tabarak. [Source: Public domain]As US forces close in on Tora Bora, bin Laden’s escape is helped by a simple ruse. A loyal bodyguard named Abdallah Tabarak takes bin Laden’s satellite phone and goes in one direction while bin Laden goes in the other. It is correctly assumed that the US can remotely track the location of the phone. Tabarak is eventually captured with the phone while bin Laden apparently escapes. Tabarak is later put in the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Interrogation of him and others in Tora Bora confirm the account. (Finn 1/21/2003) This story indicates bin Laden was still at least occasionally using satellite phones long after media reports that the use of such phones could reveal his location (see February 9-21, 2001). The US will consider Tabarak such a high-value prisoner that at one point he will be the only Guantanamo prisoner that the Red Cross will be denied access to. However, in mid-2004 he will be released and returned to his home country of Morocco, then released by the Moroccan government by the end of the year. Neither the US nor the Moroccan government will offer any explanation for his release. The Washington Post will call the release of the well-known and long-time al-Qaeda operative an unexplained “mystery.” (Whitlock 1/30/2006)

Hank Crumpton. [Source: State Department]According to author Ron Suskind, CIA Deputy Counter Terrorism Center Director Hank Crumpton briefs President Bush and Vice President Cheney about the looming battle in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, where about 1,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban are settling in. He points out the region is very mountainous, with many tunnels and escape routes. Bush asks about the passages to Pakistan that the Pakistani government has agreed to block (see November 2001). Using a map, Crumpton shows “the area on the Pakistani side of the line [is] a lawless, tribal region that [Pakistan has] little control over. In any event, satellite images showed that [Pakistan’s] promised troops hadn’t arrived, and seemed unlikely to appear soon.” Crumpton adds that the Afghan forces in the region allied to the US are “tired and cold and, many of them are far from home.” They were battered from fighting in the south against Taliban forces, and “they’re just not invested in getting bin Laden.” He tells Bush that “we’re going to lose our prey if we’re not careful” and strongly recommends the US marines being sent to Kandahar (see November 26, 2001) get immediately redirected to Tora Bora instead. Cheney says nothing. Bush presses Crumpton for more information. “How bad off are these Afghani forces, really? Are they up to the job?” Crumpton replies, “Definitely not, Mr. President. Definitely not.” However, the Pentagon is not voicing the same concerns to Bush. The marines are not redirected to seal off the passes. (Suskind 2006, pp. 58-59)